I would like to add 2 new instrumnents with USB connections

[VEGMANN]

I would like to add 2 new instruments to my PC. I have an Avantes spectrometer (USB) and a Metrohm 836 Titrando unit (USB). Max doesnt see these two instrumnets at the moment. What do I do to configure this correctly?

[Kenny_K]

You dont necesarily need the instruments to show up in MAX for them to work.  I use another usb device in labview and it does not show up in MAX, but I can still read data off it.

Do you have the drivers for those instruments or do you need to write them yourself??  If you need to write them yourself, I would contact the manufactoer to see if they can give some more technical info than is propably in the user manual.

Kenny

[Dennis_Knutson]

Kenny is right. There are only a few ways that a USB instrument will show up in MAX. One is if the instrument is a USBTMC (Test and Measurement Class) device. If you ask the vendor about this and the vendor goes "Huh?", then it probably isn't. Two is if the vendor has implemented the interface to the instrument as a USB->RS-232 converter. In that case, the instrument would show up in MAX as an additional com port. Third is if you create an inf file yourself using the VISA Driver Development Wizard as described here. In this case, you would have to use USB RAW commands and get some very detailed information from the vendor. Getting this information is often difficult to impossible and writing a bunch of USB RAW command is not a pleasant job. Normally, you would use the Call Library Function to interface to the vendor's dll or use ActiveX if the vendor provides that. Check the windows device manager to see if the instrument's are listed there and how they are described.

[Matt_F]

Hello Vegmann,

Along with contacting the instrument manufacturer, you can request for a driver to be created at http://sine.ni.com/apps/we/niid_web_display.request_driver .  All driver requests from this web page are sent to our R&D group who will work with the manufacturer to see if a labVIEW driver can be created. 

Regards,

Matt F

Instrument Driver Product Manager