Fieldpoint Message Format

[Wes_OH]

Have the following situation.

Two distant sites: (1) Host PC running LV 8.2 talking with (2) Comact Fieldpoint Controller with IO modules taking measurements.  A serial connection between the Host PC and Compact Fieldpoint modules via fiber optic link.

Troubleshooting setup.

Using a passive "sniffer".  Another PC with serial connection to only the data lines viewing the communications between the Host PC and Fieldpoint Controller at site 2.

My question:  Is a  Fieldpoint message format document available?

Take for example, a voltage measurement requested by the Host PC via a FP Read on the serial connection.

The data would be recetreived from the  AO module and returned to the Host PC by the FP Controller over the serial connection.

[Riconquistiamola]

Hi Wes,

Your wording of the question is a bit confusing, but I believe what you are trying to do is possible.

Have you taken a look at Using DataSocket Commands to Communicate with FieldPoint Ethernet Network Modules?

The focus is LabVIEW, but this document gives you an introduction to the protocol used to transmit/receive FieldPoint data.

Cheers.

[Wes_OH]

Sorry, muddling two separate systems together.

The particular system I'm speaking of in FP not cFP based.

Here are a couple of pictures to clarify.

First, is the Host PC/Fieldpoint setup.  This is very simplified, there are several interface panels, slip rings, etc and about 1/2 mile of distance in the data path between the PC and the FP controller.

Second, is the cable used for "sniffing" the RS-232 line.

The idea is to ensure we have good data going down the line before troubleshooting bad data at the other end.

This will eliminate the Fieldpoint and leave just the multitude of connections to check out.

I'm looking for format of the RS-232 package.   Is it just straight ASCII text?

For example, send a VISA read request from the Host PC to tell the FP Controller to give me the measurement value of an AO module channel.

What would I expect to see on the RS-232 line?  

Thanks.

[Riconquistiamola]

Hi Wes,

Thank you for providing more information.

What would I expect to see on the RS-232 line?

Communication over the serial bus in standardized, so you should see typical handshaking transmissions once the port is opened. Once handshaking has been taken care of the only information passed in packets is the data from the I/O modules.

That is, if you're measuring temperature the packets will contain numerical temperature data.

What is the purpose of this spy computer?

Cheers.

[BEHajder]

The FieldPoint serial data message protocol is defined in the "FP-1000/FP-1001 Programmer Reference Manual" which usually comes with that hardware, but can be downloaded from the NI web site. It is text based.

[Wes_OH]

Thanks, just checking if there was any special packet construction or encoding with VISA and Fieldpoint VIs for Serial Read/Write.

In use for us, the end running LabVIEW and the Fieldpoint modules gathering sensor data is in one location, and there is a remote terminal of sorts requesting and gathering data.

There are serveral connections between the ends and just looking for a way to verify what is going down the line is good data.

Then if we have obviously garbage data on the end we can narrow troubleshooting down to the transmission line and components.

The monitor would only be used in tests of the whole setup during installation and for general troubleshooting.

Not a constant monitoring of the data.

[Wes_OH]

Thanks to you too BEHajder