Is Sorensen XEL Power supply compatible with labview

[samputhur]

Is Sorensen XEL Power supply compatible with labview?. I'm into automotive domain of Vehicle instrument cluster. I want to test and simulate various transients conditions that can generate noise to the supply line for which I needed a programmable power supply. Currently I have a NIcompactRIO setup. I needed higher voltage Output cards for simulating and testing special conditions and requirements.

I was told that Sorensen XEL series is compatible with Labview. Is it right?. One another question I have is NIcompactRIO uses Ethernet IP communication, but Sorensen uses RS 232 communication. Can I have parallel communication protocol possible with Labview frontend controlling the both from the same single PC.

Thirdly what are the function Blocks required in the VI for programming Sorensen.And last but the least, where can I get a Sorensen RS 232 drivers?

[GuenterMueller]

I haven't used this device but I am pretty sure that the driver you are talking about can be taken from here:  http://www.sorensen.com/products/XEL/XEL_Downloads.htm.  

Communicating on different channels/buses at the same time (GPIB, RS232, RS485, TCP, ...) is a typical scenario for a LabVIEW application.

[Dennis_Knutson]

I've used the power supply. The driver from Ametek (remove the period from the link) is an IVI driver. I did not use that. I wrote my own in a few hours. There is a wizard at Tools>Instrumentation>Create Instrument Driver Project that can help. I cannot attach the code I created though, as it was for a customer.

[samputhur]

Thanks Mr. Dennis.  I'm able to communicate with Labview VI's using RS 232 serial port. I'm able to control the Voltage from the front panel only when this VI(see the atachment) is running. I used  the VI that was available on one of the discussion forum. 

If I try to run any other VI's that communicates through the Ethernet IP, then this particular VI stops running. Once it happens, I can no longer control my voltage and current from the VI unless and until I reboot the system. I 'm using Labview 2012 on Windows 7 environment. 

[Dennis_Knutson · Accepted solution]

There is nothing in that VI with Ethernet communication so I don't understand what you are asking.

Instead of appending a \r\n with every write, I would recomend you configure VISA to append it automatically and I would also recomend you enable the read termination character as well. Then there would be no need for the VISA Bytes at Serial Port and those waits. Look at the advanced serial example to see how to configure the VISA property to append a termination character.

[rolfk]

Actually if the device really requires both \r\n to be appended (which by the way most devices don't as they will usally only use the \n and ignore the \r) then using the automatic VISA append termination char is not an option as it only adds one character. Also I personally prefer to handle the termination character explicitedly when sending data to a device.

Use of the enable read termination character option in VISA however is an absolute DO! The Bytes at Serial Port has absolutely no right to exist in any device driver as it makes handling reliable device communication very complicated and sometimes impossible. 

[dacad]

I use a Sorensen XDL power supply and use the IVI drivers for that model downloaded from teh Avetek.Sorensen website.  I created a vi that uses the instrument drivers and only need to run it when I want to make a change to what the PS is doing.

The dll contains peretty much all of the programmable functions.  Should be the same for the XEL I would think.

I attached my VI w/ the intrument driver files.