Use ics electronics 488-usb2 communicate with stanford SR830

[LITE]

Hi, 

I have a problem with ICS ELECTRONICS 488-USB2(USB-to-GPIB Controller) and Stanford SR830 locking amplifier.

My working system is LabVIEW 8.6, and my purpose is to write a VI to control SR830 through 488-USB2.

After updating the latest driver from ICS and instrument driver for SR830 from NATIONAL INSTRUMENTS, I still could not locate my SR830.

Is there any setup I should notice??

Thank you 

[NathanT]

Hello Effie,

       According to the Instrument Driver Troubleshooting Guide, it is important to verify sucessful communication with your device before attempting to use the instrument driver.  I recommend that you contact ICS to see what instructions they have for configuring the USB-GPIB controller.  Once it is sucessfully configured and working properly, try sending some basic commands to the SR830 and read back the responses.

Let us know how it goes,

NathanT

[LITE]

 Hi NathanT

Thanks for your help. I try to search the tutorial example on NI webside.  

I found that under the "Device and Interfaces" column, there is no choice of "USB devices" in my system. So I could not set up the driver to connect the MAX and USB-GPIB controller. 

By the way, my working system is LavVIEW 8.5.1 V.S. Win7, and the instrument driver is NI Device Drivers 2010.02 - Windows - 

Is there any way to call out the "USB devices" in MAX. Thank you.

[Dennis_Knutson]

MAX is a utility program for NI devices - not ICS. You need software from ICS to configure their GPIB controller. If they have a VISA driver, then you can install that and also enable tulip support in MAX so that your controller is visible. If there is no VISA support, then you will need a low level driver from them that would be called in LabVIEW. You cannot use the low level GPIB functions in LabVIEW unless you have an NI GPIB controller.

Your next stop is ICS support.

[LITE]

Hi Dennis

Thanks for your help. I downloaded the ICS driver to configure my GPIB controller, and I could communicate with SR830 through ICS's software. But I still couldn't find my instrument from MAX, and I still couldn't use the instrument driver, Stanford Research 830,

http://sine.ni.com/apps/utf8/niid_web_display.download_page?p_id_guid=240C113D3165071BE0440003BA7CCD....

In this instrument driver, the "VISA source name" is blank. It looks like the VI couldn't find my SR830.

I guess my problem is how to communicate the ICS driver with NI driver.

[Dennis_Knutson]

As I said, you have to check to see whether ICS has a VISA driver for their product. If they do, you can go into MAX and for NI-VISA, configure it to support tulip. Then, (theoritically) the controller should be visible in MAX and you can use the instrument driver. If ICS does not support VISA, then you will have to rewrite the instrument driver to use whatever functions that ICS does support for LabVIEW. They have a download page for LabVIEW drivers but it requires registration and that is not something I am inclined to do to see exactly what their support is.

Your problem is not with LabVIEW or the instrument driver or anything really related to NI. The questions should be asked of ICS.