Ballbar Communication - Progressing

[Phil747]

Hi. I'M progressing with the communication with my ballbar, but I still have problems. The information I got from Renishaw, the ballbar company, is that when I send an "S", I get bytes in return, and when I send an "E", it stops. In MAX, I send the "S" (*S?\n), then the "E" (*E?\n) in Basic I/O. When I read the bytes that passed during the time between "S" and "E" (about 2000 bytes), I read what I was expecting. After having spoken with technical support, I've tried the example "LabVIEW <-> Serial.vi" and it works one time over ten!?! And there is no difference even if I write in "Normal Display" or in "\Code Display". I send the "S", and one time over ten I got an answer, and the others I get a TimeOut error. It is the same if I send
*IDN?\n, and sending the "E" before sending "S" doesn't make any difference. I know I am a bit turning around with my questions, but if anyone would have an idea, I'll appreciate it.

[Steven B]

Hello,

Thanks for contacting National Instruments.

This sure is a strange problem you are seeing. I wanted to see if I could get more information about what you are seeing. You said in MAX that it worked ok, but just not in LabVIEW. Did it work everytime OK in MAX? Then when you run it in LabVIEW it was totally intermittent? Are you specifically opening and closing a VISA session on every run? Also, have you checked to be sure that you are using the correct baud rate, etc? What about extending your timeout value?

Regards,
Steven B.
Applications Engineering
National Instruments