RS232 control of SR830 Lock in

[Viel]

Hello

For a project i am trying to control SR830 lock in but im having problems with the visa drivers. im getting an error on the read visa.

when i try sending commands using NIMAX it works sometimes and im able to send commands and read data however whenever i run any of the examples provided with the drivers i get a read visa error.

A similar probelm happened when i was doing the same for keithely source meter. for the keithey the problem was the null rs232 connection i had and i replaced it with a straight one and it worked.

for the lock in i suspect its a similar cable problem. i am using a DB9 to DB25 convertor and i have a usb 2.0 pr rs232 as the cable im using. 

Do converters like the one mentioned above have types like null and straight ?

would using a GPIB cable be easier than dwelling over this ?

i appreciate any help i can get.

sorry if there is anther post about this topic, i didnt have the time to look thought them.

thanks in advance for the help.

[cstorey]

Parrallell to serial?  I'm sure you can get all flavours of those cables too.

RS232 is generally a lower cost solution than GPIB.  And as you know you can run into issues with cable types and if you need to add in USB-RS232 conversion then you can run into further issues.   RS232 is perhaps a bit slower but the SR830 its a high speed device so no concern there.

Working with GPIB is nice, all cables are the same there is no issue of using a null or cross over.    The only issue is which vendor you choose (NI, Keithley, Keysight, etc..) and then the corresponding driver set.  I like the NI GPIB-USB-HS, http://www.ni.com/en-ca/support/model.gpib-usb-hs.html, though a bit pricier than others, but the NI VISA drivers work well with LabVIEW on all systems.  There are ways to use multiple VISA drivers and drivers from different vendors in LabVIEW - search the forums before you buy if you decide to pick another brand..

I've used the SR830 with both RS232 and GPIB, and both worked well for me.  If you were able to send commands, but then communication stops I suspect maybe a code issue.  Make sure you reset(power cycle) the locking before trying to send more commands.  I think I remember having to do that while debugging a setup with the lockin...but its been a while.