Instrument Control (GPIB, Serial, VISA, IVI)
USB-GPIB-HS with Probe Station PC running Nucleus
I'm trying to connect my laptop to the Cascade Summit 12000 Probe Station through a GPIB-USB-HS cable, and I was facing some issues. The intended final setup is as shown below, with "My Laptop" being the CIC:
I have currently disconnected the GPIB cable from the VNA to get that out of the equation when debugging (purely testing the connection between the Probe Station Controller PC and my laptop), so the current setup looks like this:
The commands I'm using on the interactive control for each of the devices are as shown below:
#on my laptop
ibfind gpib0
ibsic
ibrsc 1
ibdev 0 28 0 13 1 0
ibwrt "*idn?"
ibrd 100#on the cascade probe station controller PC
ibfind gpib0
ibrsc 0
ibpad 28
ibrd 100 #used to debug
Here are some things to note:
- No one currently in the lab has access to change the NIMAX settings as the admin login credentials have been lost. Since the current NIMAX setting sets the probe station controller PC as the CIC, I disabled it using ibrsc 0, and on my laptop, used the ibsic, ibrsc 1 commands to make it the CIC.
- Initially, my writes were giving me an EBUS (14) error. I tried "ibrd 100" from the interactive control of the probe station PC, and realized the last few characters weren't reading, so I changed around the message I was sending: adding a "\r" or a "\n", getting rid of them, etc.
- After that, I was able to see the entire message.
- Once I was able to see the entire message, I stopped typing ibrd 100 on the probe station PC to see its actual response, and since then, I've only been getting EABO (6).
I'm planning to use either Python or C; below is the (mostly AI-generated) Python code I've been using so far to try and verify the communication.
import ctypes
import time
ERROR_CODES = {
0: "EDVR - System error",
1: "ECIC - Not CIC",
2: "ENOL - No listener",
3: "EADR - Address error",
4: "EARG - Invalid argument",
5: "ESAC - Not system controller",
6: "EABO - I/O aborted (timeout)",
7: "ENEB - No GPIB board",
10: "EOIP - Async I/O in progress",
11: "ECAP - No capability",
14: "EBUS - Bus error",
15: "ESTB - Serial poll status byte lost",
16: "ESRQ - SRQ stuck on",
20: "ETAB - Table problem"
}
# Load the NI-488.2 driver DLL
gpib = ctypes.windll.LoadLibrary("gpib-32.dll")
# Load GPIB status variables from the DLL
ibsta = ctypes.c_short.in_dll(gpib, "ibsta")
iberr = ctypes.c_int.in_dll(gpib, "iberr")
ibcnt = ctypes.c_long.in_dll(gpib, "ibcnt")
# Constants
BOARD_INDEX = 0 # Your controller is on GPIB1
DEVICE_ADDR = 28 # GPIB address of the target machine
TIMEOUT = 17 # 10-second timeout (T10s)
EOT_MODE = 1 # Enable EOI at end-of-transmission
EOS_CHAR = 0 # No EOS character
# Step 1: Clear the bus and become Controller-in-Charge
gpib.ibsic(BOARD_INDEX) # Interface Clear (assert IFC)
time.sleep(0.5) # Optional pause for bus to settle
gpib.ibrsc(BOARD_INDEX, 1) # Request Controller-In-Charge (CIC)
time.sleep(0.5) # Optional pause for bus to settle
if ibsta.value & 0x8000:
print(f"[ERROR] ibrsc failed — iberr = {iberr.value}")
exit(1)
# Step 2: Open connection to device
dev = gpib.ibdev(BOARD_INDEX, DEVICE_ADDR, 0, TIMEOUT, EOT_MODE, EOS_CHAR)
if dev < 0 or ibsta.value & 0x8000:
print(f"[ERROR] ibdev failed — iberr = {iberr.value}")
exit(1)
# Step 3: Send a message
message = "*idn?".encode("ascii")
time.sleep(0.5)
gpib.ibwrt(dev, message, len(message))
if ibsta.value & 0x8000:
err_msg = ERROR_CODES.get(iberr.value, "Unknown error")
print(f"[ERROR] ibwrt failed — iberr = {iberr.value} ({err_msg})")
# Step 4 (optional): Try to read a response
buffer = ctypes.create_string_buffer(100)
gpib.ibrd(dev, buffer, 100)
if ibsta.value & 0x8000:
print(f"[WARN] No response — iberr = {iberr.value}")
else:
reply = buffer.value.decode(errors="ignore")
print(f"[INFO] Received reply: {reply}")
# Step 5: Close connection
gpib.ibonl(dev, 0)
print("[INFO] GPIB session closed.")The above code always fails during ibwrt or timeout.
I have enabled GPIB communication from the hardware configuration window in Nucleus, following the instructions provided in their communication guidelines. Is this what you meant by changing the settings of Nucleus, or is there another setting I have to alter?
