ieee.488 or rs232 ?

[pitopito]

Hi everybody,

I've always used ieee.488 for communicating with instruments but now I'm facing some problems using RS232 (with VISA) even if I only need to perform simple settings and querying on an Agilent Power Supply (E364XA family). Since I come across some problem with timing, so I ask you a little help to understand some basic information about communication with instruments :

- What are the main differences between IEEE.488 and RS232...Except cost I mean 🙂
- When I'd better to use one of them instead of other?

- Are there some weaky point to care of, when using RS232 ?

Thank you all in advance...

Giovanni

[crossrulz]

GPIB is a parallel bus,  RS-232 is serial.

GPIB can have multiple instruments on a single bus.  RS-232 is a one-to-one bus.

GPIB has a  faster transfer rate.  I'm not sure about latency.  I'll have to look that one up.

Unless cost is a major factor, I would much prefer GPIB over RS-232 for instrument control.  But for cost reasons, I'm looking to go to ethernet and LXI for future test sets.

[crossrulz]

It doesn't talk about serial, but this is a good article to read through:Instrument Beus Performance

[nyc_(is_out_of_here)]

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@crossrulz wrote:

Unless cost is a major factor, I would much prefer GPIB over RS-232 for instrument control.  But for cost reasons, I'm looking to go to ethernet and LXI for future test sets.

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+1