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Reading Pulse from a function generator using RS232

Hi,
My name is Joshua Varghese. I am fairly new to labview and i needed a great deal of help with my program. Before i go into the interface i made i should explain what it should do. Basically I am trying to read binary pulses from a function generator through RS232 and Plot that data in the graphical user interface. It should plot it over real time. I took a basic read and write example and i did a little modification. But it's not working. I think it's because the pulses are Binary and my program's not reading it. So i guess the logic is receive the binary data convert it to numbers and plot it. So it would be great if someone could help me build this. Any help is greatly appreciated.  Thank you.
 
Sincerely,
Joshua Varghese
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Hi Joshua
 
How did you connect the function generator to the rs232 port?
I hope you did not connect the analog output of the generator directly to the input of the rs232 port.
If you did it is not impossible to measure slow (seconds) pulses but you need a special connection.
 
If you connected the rs232 port of the function generator to the rs232 port of the pc, what function generator do you use?
greetings from the Netherlands
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Hi Joshua,

What function generator are you using?  It is possible that we already have a LabVIEW Plug and Play driver for it that impements what you are trying to do.  You can search for one on ID NET.
Robert Mortensen
Software Engineer
National Instruments
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Hi Robert,

I mentioned function generator for test purposes but what i really want to do is using RS232 receive data . The RS232 will be connected to a Wireless device(Axiom Board-CME 12B32). and the data that is received through RS232 to the interface are Binary pulses(1's and 0's- high's and low's). The interface has to count for 10 seconds and then reset the counter ( say assigning a variable S) so this has to be graphed in terms of real time clock. so the counter starts again and counts for 10 sec and plot it. It follows this trend. So, i want to create a interface which would receive this binary data and graph it every 10 sec with a counter. It would be really great if you could help me with this. I am new with labview and I have a deadline to meet and i hope i can get a response as fast as possible. Your help will be kindly and greatly appreciated. I hope to hear from you guys soon. You can e-mail me all your answers at sav23@drexel.edu and jvarghese83@gmail.com. Just in case the first email gets full. You can also reach me at 2678791918. Thank You

Best regards,

Joshua varghese

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The RS-232 port is not really designed for digital data acquisition. What pins of the RS-232 port do you have connected to the digial data and what are the voltage levels? Unless they are +/- 12 volts, you are not going to see anything becasue that is what the serial port is designed to detect. Have you studied the electrical characteristics of RS-232? You are probably better off using the parallel port. You might want to check the app note at http://zone.ni.com/devzone/conceptd.nsf/webmain/72C6FC6CE4AD4D1386256B1800794596

p.s. It's not a good idea to post your emails on a public forum unless you enjoy spam and expecting a phone call from anyone here is a little unreasonable.

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Hi,

in the RS-232 port, 4 lines may be connected as inputs upt to 200kHz
and so be used to read pulses: CD RI DSR CTS

With a bit of soldering and functions for reading the RS-232 lines you
can do what you want ( perhaps)

This is explained, among other sources, in the manuals of LabTab (
www.LabTab.com )

regards,

FG

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