Highland Technologies T560 VI

[rhodesengr]

Looking to see if anyone has already written a VI for the Highland Technologies T560 delay generator. I am particularly interested in a VI using the ethernet interface. I have search the VI libraries but didn't find one.

[Bob_Schor]

I see that this device has both Ethernet and RS-232 capabilities, which suggests that it may use a simple command protocol, possibly over a VISA interface (which can travel over Ethernet).  I could not find a manual on-line to confirm this, but you presumably have one.

What I would suggest is to study the manual and see how it says to communicate with the device.  If my guess is correct that you can use VISA over TCP/IP, then I'd recommend you start as follows:

1. Connect your device to the network and be sure you know its IP.
2. Open MAX.  You may need to manually configure a VISA Device over TCP/IP using the IP of your device, and the Serial Protocol parameters listed in the manual.  If you also have an "ordinary" (USB) connection, you can also try plugging this in first (so as to not have to worry about IPs).
3. Open the VISA Panel once you are connected.  Attempt to communicate with your device using the Command Protocol described in your manual.
4. Once you get it working through MAX, you only need to duplicate the steps you used to configure VISA, make the initial connection, and initiate communications.
5. If you haven't done VISA communication coding in LabVIEW, don't make the common mistake of using "Bytes at Port" to decide when to do a VISA Read.  Most modern devices send data as Ascii text, ending with a termination character (typically LineFeed, 0xA).  You want to configure VISA to use a Termination Character (0xA is the default, so you probably won't have to change it).  When you do a VISA Read, ask for far more characters than you expect (I typically ask for 1024) -- when the Termination Character is read (probably after 10-20 characters), the VISA Read will end and will return the (short) string for you to parse.  If, perchance, no characters are available (because the device went off-line, power failed, or something), VISA will "time out" (also set when VISA is configured, something like 15 seconds) and you'll get a Time-Out error (which you can handle).

Bob Schor

[rhodesengr]

Bob,

Thanks for the reply. I am further along now than when I posted. I am successfully sending commands and reading responses over ethernet simply using TCPIP open, write, read, and close VI's. So I have the basic communication already working. I am working on my own group of VI's.

I tried the MAX program but could not get that to work. The button for "add new deice" does not show up. Someone here with more Labview experience than me thought I didn't need MAX and that turned out to be true. Still it bothers me that MAX does not seem to work the way the manual says it should.

My original post was to see if anyone else had already written a comprehensive VI for the T560 so I could leverage someone else's work.

The manual for the unit is linked from their website, in case you are interested.

https://www.highlandtechnology.com/dyn/files/doc/T560MANK5.pdf