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Get equipment specification / limits

Hi,

 

I'm planning on programming test setup software which will set the frequency range on an Agilent ENA. How can I programmatically determine whether the network analyser is capable of setting a certain frequency (as an example, if my ENA has a frequency range of 300KHz to 3GHz but a user tries to program it to stop at 8GHz, how can I determine if this value falls out of this range? Is there a way to get the equipment limits programmatically as some analysers which use the same drivers can operate up to higher frequencies?

 

Many thanks,

Charlie

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Do you have drivers installed for the equipment?  You can use the NI Instrument Driver finder to locate instrument drivers provided by the manufacturer.  If the information that you are looking for is not provided by the manufacturer's drivers, you'll have to consult the user manual to see if you can write your own code to get the spec limits using VISA or some other communication protocol.

aputman
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I usually just write the setting and then check to see if the instrument threw any errors (SYST:ERR?).  I think the LabVIEW drivers from the IDnet has a VI for checking the error queue.


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Thanks for the replies guys. Yes, i've currently got the correct drivers installed and I've just tried it today to see what would happen if I did set the stop frequency out-of-range, however I wasn't able to get an error to be displayed (using an indicator wired to the error-our node of the function). Crossrulz, have you by any chance got an example of how you've done this in the past, or should I not wire it up to the 'error-out' node?

 

I would post my example diagram, however I'm not currently at my PC which has labview installed. If this is needed, please let me know and I'll try and remotely retrieve it.

 

Many thanks,

Charlie

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@CharlieB5 wrote:

Thanks for the replies guys. Yes, i've currently got the correct drivers installed and I've just tried it today to see what would happen if I did set the stop frequency out-of-range, however I wasn't able to get an error to be displayed (using an indicator wired to the error-our node of the function). Crossrulz, have you by any chance got an example of how you've done this in the past, or should I not wire it up to the 'error-out' node?


I get the error using the ENA drivers that I was using as an example for my PNA driver (it can do a lot more than the ENA, but many of the commands are the same).  Somebody was smart enough to check for an error at the end of each VI that does some settings.


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Thanks for the reply crossrulz, I'll have another play with it using your example when I'm back at my ENA and I'll let you know the outcome.

 

Thanks again,

Charlie

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I think the ENA accept MIN and MAX as parameters for the frequency settings. I would try to set the frequency to MIN (SENS:FREQ:STAR MIN) and then query it back (SENS:FREQ:STAR?). I didn't try it but there is a chance that the query will return the numeric value. If it works you can do the same thing with the stop frequency using the MAX value.

 

edit: depending on the model you may have to include the channel number in the command (SENS1 ...)

 

Ben64

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