10 port valve control

[mudithadias]

Hi,

I ran the programme with a terminal emulation software and the actutator works fine with that. I could get it to switch positions with commands given in the manual.

[nathand]

Are you sure that you are sending the exact same commands from Hyperterminal and from LabVIEW? When you enter a command in Hyperterminal, do you hit "Enter" afterwards? In LabVIEW, do you include that "Enter" in the string you send? If not, that is likely the problem. You can configure VISA to send a termination character (such as Carriage Return or Line Feed) after every transmission, if needed, by setting and enabling the termination character.

[mudithadias]

Yeah I hit enter with the emulator. I did not include that in the labview. So should I type'enter' after the command?

[nathand]

Yes! That enter is part of the command, and it gets sent to the device. The device interprets it as the end of the command. Without it, the device doesn't know you've sent an entire command, so it doesn't respond.

[mudithadias]

I see. I will try it that way then. Thank you !!!

[Dennis_Knutson]

Just don't do something silly like using the text 'enter'. 

[mudithadias]

Hi,

Can we run the 'Basic serial write and read' example given in labVIEW using the student edition? Im having trouble running the VI. Are there any NI VISA add-ons needed to run it?

Thanks

[Dennis_Knutson]

All that you need to run it is NI-VISA. Just saying "I'm having trouble" is inadequate in explaining what sort of issue you are having. Attach your code with a much fuller description, including any errors (with error code) that you are getting.

[camerond]

A couple of things about running VICI valves through the VICI serial control boxes:

1.  As has been said before, you have to have an "enter" character at the end. One way to do this if you are typing into a control is to concatenate it with a following "line feed" ("\n" in "\ Codes" display or "0A" in Hex display, or it's actually on the String palette) string constant.

2.  The VICI boxes have a finite response time of several tenths of a second, so to be safe I always put a 1-second delay after writing anything to the valves before either reading their response or sending another command. Otherwise, you'll accomplish nothing.

3. You do send an initialization command before you try to make the valve do anything, don't you?

Cameron

[Fbaird]

I have had this very same problem and this post was very useful, but I'm not sure that the automatic \r or \n worked for me when setting up the VISA channel.  I seemed to have better luck disabling the termination character on the VISA configure serial port vi.  I instead concatinated my string to a line feed constant which seemed to do the trick.  I also added a bit of logic so that the wait between the write and the read isn't constant.  I found that it needs more than 1 second to communicate the response to the /? command and less than 100ms for a possition query. 

I hope this helps if it isn't too late.