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Accessing a Laser through Active X

Dear all,

 

I currently have a setup using a Polytec UHF120 vibrometer system in which I have made a custom LABVIEW program for control of my actuation system and data acquisition. The data is demodulated and I conduct frequency sweep testing which works fine. However, I have to start the vibrometer using the software "Vibsoft" supplied by the company, in which, I turn on the laser for measuring then run my LABVIEW program. This means that the laser is continuously on through out my entire experiment but the samples I am testing are highly reactive to heat due to the laser so I want to be able to turn the laser on/off between test points in order to allow time for a quick measurement say 50 us then if the actuation frequency is the same to turn the laser off say for 2 seconds until a new frequency is detected and the next frequency point is measured. This is a swept sine test so a few seconds between test points is fine just the toggling the laser on/off in labview is my concern.

 

There are active X controls for the polytec vibrometer, however, I didn't locate one for the laser on/off routine and the company doesn't want to reply how to handle this problem. Has anybody else encountered this problem before or have any ideas? In the Vibsoft software the key command "ctrl+1" will toggle the laser, I am not sure if this could be an alternative way to do this but I am not sure how to send the keys to another software and keep labview as the main program running and only send keys to vibsoft to toggle the laser.

 

Any help is most appreciated

 

Kindest regards,

Tanju

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I am sure there is a way to do it. Do you have the complete list of function of this laser?

If yes, copy and paste it... we will see. I believe it's more an understanding of the documentation that anything else.

Benoit

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I think for the vibsof software a scripting interface via vbs is available. For this Polytec will supply you an interface description.

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Hi Beseguin,

 

Thanks for your kind response. There are visual basic scripts available, however, I want to run this through Labview and not through VB. I don't really have any documentation regarding the laser, the company doesn't really release much information. Just by scrolling through the activeX controls I have been looking but they did send me a VB code example which is just SetLaserOn as Boolean then its simple on/off. But I am not sure how to achieve this in Labview. I don't find the same control in the Active X directory. It has me a little bit worried as to how to solve this issue now.

 

Kind regards,

Tanju

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If possible I would highly recommand you to talk to Polytec support. You have to synchronize the excitation signal and the measurement. Therefore you have to synchronize phase (response of your surface with respect to excitation signal) as well. And 50 µs measurement time is not really long.

I've used kind of these instruments as well and you could really do a lot with the software they handle you and the technical support from Polytec was really helpful.

I'm not really sure if this is even technically possible...

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Hi Aptivo,

 

Thanks for the response, In truth I have tested my system compared to their software and the results agree very well with what I am measuring. I am measuring several hundred of MHz so 50us - 200us doesnt obtain a large amount of data with a 20GHz sampling rate. I mean that I have compared doing point by point using their software against my Labview continuous acquisition and the results agree. However, they do not supply closed loop feedback for the input voltage for device actuation which is why I am resulting to labview and additionally an automated sweep is better than doing it manually point by point.

 

In truth it is polytec support that won't help me with this last part since I didn't purchase their recommended signal generator, instead, I had another one already so I didn't see the need to purchase it. Their technical support team said they would not supply any help on this laser issue as I did not purchase their signal generator which is a little bit trivial in my mind as these having nothing to do with each other and they hardly respond.

 

Thanks for your remarks though

 

Kind regards,

Tanju

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Sounds like the way for a company to catapult themselves out of the market. Well done job! I'm happy to not have to deal with them and will go to efforts to make sure that stays that way. Smiley Very Happy

Rolf Kalbermatter
My Blog
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Do you still have warranty?
I would confront the polytec sales guy - who sold you this product - with this issue.
This may be a bit uncomfortable for both of you, but this is likely to speed up things.
 
@tanju wrote:

In truth it is polytec support that won't help me with this last part since I didn't purchase their recommended signal generator, instead, I had another one already so I didn't see the need to purchase it.

Their technical support team said they would not supply any help on this laser issue as I did not purchase their signal generator which is a little bit trivial in my mind as these having nothing to do with each other and they hardly respond.

 

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