How do I read the TDS scope and have it show on Labview

[ThunderBird]

I am using Tektronix TDS3012B oscilloscope and LabVIEW7.1
I've already downloaded the new driver for the scope, but it is based on VISA. My board only supports GPIB. What kind of command to transfer data from scope to LabVIEW? Thanks.
TBird

[RayFarmer]

Hi Thunderbird,

VISA is only a common software interface between your application, in this case the instrument driver, and different hardware interfaces, such as GPIB, VXI, etc...

So you will find that you can drive the scope with the labVIEW driver that you downloaded.

As part of the driver, there usually is a VI call Getting Started.vi. Start with this to talk to you instrument.


Regards
Ray Farmer

[Dennis_Knutson]

If you're still having problems with that Advantech GPIB board, you should have posted in your original thread on the GPIB forum. Does Advantech supply a set of LabVIEW VIs for using their board? If yes, then every instance of VISA Write and VISA Read in the driver needs to be replaced with Advantech's GPIB Read and Write function. You have to use Advantech's and not the GPIB functions on the LabVIEW palette - these work only for an NI board. You would also have to replace every instance of the VISA Resource Name control and indicator with something that the Avantech VIs would accept. This is for the address number and could be either a string or numeric.

If Advantech does not supply a set of LabVIEW VIs, then you have a lot more work. If they supply a dll, then you would have to use the Call Libray Node function and determine the correct calling parameters from their documentation. I would also recomend that you call Advantech and yell and scream at them for not providing something as basic as a LabVIEW driver.

If all of this seems like a lot of work (and it is), you also might want to think about contacting your local NI sales engineer and see if you can trade in the board you have for one from NI.