FieldMax with USB and ActiveX to LabVIEW Please HELP

[resrchengee]

Hi, I am using the FieldMax power meter from Coherent and am attempting to incorporate the ActiveX to read the power measurement in labview.

What I have done.... I've downloaded the FieldMax software from coherent... in the install it installed the labview drivers (i'm not using them) and an activeX server file called:

C:\WINDOWS\system32\FieldMax2DLLServer.dll

So what i've done is then gone into labview .. droped a auto-open ActiveX refnum on the screen and created a control off the input to it... i think right click the control and select "choose ActiveX class" i then navigate to the FieldMax2DLLServer.dll file and there are a bunch of options to choose from?

I don't know which one to choose?? I looked all through the coherent readme files that came with the software install and there isn't any examples of how to use the ActiveX in labview so i'm hoping someone out there can help me...

I did read this post: http://forums.ni.com/ni/board/message?board.id=170&message.id=295904

which had a sample vi that supposedly used activeX for the field max but when i opened it it says that it can't find the activeX object that is in the vi

If anyone could help it would be appreciated.

Thanks,

[smercurio_fc]

Why aren't you using the LabVIEW drivers if they're provided for you?

[resrchengee]

Well, the labview drivers they provide were written in 2005 and were never updated for versions of labview beyond 8.5. Second, the drivers are excessively complicated in order to just do basic functions like read the power measurement. And third, when I run there example vi's I get errors that don't even have descriptions. That may be cause I'm using 8.6 but I don't know.

I saw a simple example at the post "http://forums.ni.com/ni/board/message?board.id=170&message.id=295904" which made me think activeX was going to make my life much easier and get this power meter reading alot faster than trying to debug someone else's drivers.

[smercurio_fc]

Have you tried contacting the manufacturer to ask them which class to use?

[Vivek_N]

Sorry to hear you are receiving errors with the LabVIEW instrument driver. If you let us know what errors you are receiving, we might be able to help you out. However, if you would like to proceed using ActiveX, you would need to find out which DLL to call and what class to use. Coherent should be able to give you this information, so I would recommend contacting them.

[jmjanot]

I know that post is quite old but I am trying to interface a FieldmaxII TO in labview 8.6 and I need some advices. First if I have understood the labview drivers are unusable and the right solution is to use the activX server. I was able to see this activX in labview but one class is missing cFM2Notify. The activX server I am using is version 2.0, is it normal? In fact I am only interested in two accesses, to be able to change the full scale measurement and to read the value of the energy for this scale.

If you succeed in your trial let me know, and please if can help me because I cannot see how to go further... Thanks’

[Vivek_N]

As long as the ActiveX object is supported by version 2.0, this should not be a problem. I would contact the manufacturer to see if there are any known issues with using version 2.0 of ActiveX with their ActiveX object. LabVIEW should be fine with this version.