How can I control 2 instruments in one program?(Labview 6.0)

[zbs]

I have VX4244 and vx4101A of Tek.
I want control the 2 instruments in one program.
How can I do it?(Labview 6.0,NI-VXI 2.1.1)

[Labviewguru]

There are as many ways to do it as you can imagine. But first you have to figure out your requirements.

I am going to assume that you are using these instruments in conjunction with each other to make a measurement. All you do is set up both instruments, and make sure you don't lose track of the handles (references) for each. I would suggest that you run them in paralell to avoid confusion (visually parallel, using two different error handlers.)

Also, as I am not familiar with the instruments (who makes them, are they GPIB, DAQ, serial????) I can't offer any specific advice.

If this doesn't help, please post again.

[zbs]

I'm zbs. Thanks.

Vx4244 is a 16channels A/D.
Vx4101A is a 2 channels counter.
I want to make DAQ with Vx4244 and Vx4101A and show
the graph of A/D result and the number from the counter.

I make a vi but it can't work.
I think the way I do is wrong.
Please correct it.

[DougD]

zbs:

I am not familiar with these instruments so I don't know how they
communicate with a host PC.

If they are GPIB then make sure that they have unique address
assignments. Multiple GPIB instruments can be daisy chained together
on one GPIB interface card with certain limitations for cable length,
etc.

After that it is easy to talk to them by using the correct address for
each instrument. You will need to make sure that you carefully
control when things happen preferably using the SRQ triggering model
of handshaking between your PC and your instruments.

If they are both serial then you will probably need two serial ports -
one for each instrument, unless they can be daisy chained, in which
case you will have to do addressing on the serial port after op
ening
it to say which instrument you want to talk to and will have to make
sure that they have unique addresses on the daisy chain.

If you have a combination of serial and GPIB then you will have to
deal with both interfaces at the same time but this shouldn't be a big
deal either.

It's just important to make sure that you control the order of
execution especially when you are co-ordinating the actions of two
different instruments. If one instrument has to finish doing
something before the other begins doing something, then you will have
to write your code to ensure that this happens or the results could be
rather erratic.

Douglas De Clue
ddeclue@bellsouth.net

zbs wrote in message news:<506500000008000000CF520000-1027480788000@exchange.ni.com>...
> I have VX4244 and vx4101A of Tek.
> I want control the 2 instruments in one program.
> How can I do it?(Labview 6.0,NI-VXI 2.1.1)

[Dennis_Knutson]

When you attach a VI, you also have to include the subVIs. The best way to do that is to select Save with Options and choose Development Distribution.

Even without any of your subVIs available, I need to ask some basic questions. Are you using an embedded VXI controller, MXI, or GPIB communication to your VXI chassis? Are the instruments and VXI chassis visible in MAX? Can you communicate with them there? I'm pretty sure that both of these instruments have a soft front panel with their plug'n play driver. Have you tried this to verify basic communication? Before diving into a VI with apparently a lot of instrument communication, it's necessary to start simple and establish some basic communication first.