LabVIEW 8.0 VISA troubles

[Alex_Suhisky]

Hi Wireheads,

I am trying to interface CMA 402 syringe pump and having troubles reading from it. Recently my LabVIEW 8.0 was wiped out during installation of the Labview 2021 promotion version and I had to reinstall it from scratch. Doing that I installed the ni-visa 21.5 newest driver and suspect that might be my problem.

An issue is that I am able to write and then read from the serial with the simple VISA Write/Read but when I use the same code in my main VI Read portion does not read the data in the buffer. Even the property node returns 0 bytes in the buffer that does not make any sense. I do not see literally anything that could interfere so I am kinda stumbled at it.

Do you think that might be a VISA driver version problem and if so what version for Windows x64 would be appropriate please? Or do you have any other ideas please?

Any help will be appreciated.

Thank you.

[RTSLVU]

I think you are on the right track this chart might help or at least supports your VISA version theory, as you can see older versions of VISA and LabVIEW are not compatible with newer versions of VISA and LabVIEW

NI-VISA and LabVIEW Version Compatibility

The chart does not go back to LabVIEW 8.0 and a compatible VISA is probably not even available for direct download but I would think NI would make that aviaible if you asked....

Honestly I am surprised LabVIEW 8.0 is still even running for you. What operating system are you running it on?

[Alex_Suhisky]

It's not my case, but thank you for a response. It's good to know anyway.

[Alex_Suhisky]

Windows 10 Enterprise.

Well, according to this chart:

https://www.ni.com/en-us/support/documentation/compatibility/09/ni-serial-and-microsoft-windows-comp...

I installed VISA v17 but have gotten the same result... That thing is just unreal to me... I cannot imagine how in the world there is a difference for the code in what VI it is running! What a mystery!

[RTSLVU]

NI-Serial is only used for NI serial based devices, you don't need it for anything else.

NI-VISA and maybe NI-488.2 (if is it a IEEE 488.2 compliant device) should be all you need for any other serial based instrument.

[billko]

---

@RTSLVU wrote:

NI-Serial is only used for NI serial based devices, you don't need it for anything else.

NI-VISA and maybe NI-488.2 (if is it a IEEE 488.2 compliant device) should be all you need for any other serial based instrument.

---

You know, I went for about a year thinking that I needed NI-Serial for serial port support, not realizing it was for NI serial port products only.

[RTSLVU]

---

@billko wrote:

---

@RTSLVU wrote:

NI-Serial is only used for NI serial based devices, you don't need it for anything else.

NI-VISA and maybe NI-488.2 (if is it a IEEE 488.2 compliant device) should be all you need for any other serial based instrument.

---

You know, I went for about a year thinking that I needed NI-Serial for serial port support, not realizing it was for NI serial port products only.

---

Me too... Several years, as the Application builder would always include Ni-Serial in an Installer build even though it was not needed.

[Alex_Suhisky]

Hmmm... I am not sure I understand... I am communicating to a USB device that is connected to a COM 3. So I need to setup that serial port, right? And "Visa Configure Serial Port" is located in Serial, right? Or we are talking about different things?

[RTSLVU]

---

@Alex_Suhisky wrote:

Hmmm... I am not sure I understand... I am communicating to a USB device that is connected to a COM 3. So I need to setup that serial port, right? And "Visa Configure Serial Port" is located in Serial, right? Or we are talking about different things?

---

We are talking about different things...

VISA Configure Serial Port (Instr).vi is a pre-fab VI that comes with LabVIEW 

NI-Serial is a driver specifically for configuring National Instrument serial interfaces

NI-VISA is an abstraction layer that makes communication with instruments easier.

Since most instrument communications in LabVIEW use VISA, VISA is required and usually installed with LabVIEW

[Kevin_Price]

To the OP:  can you post your code?

I have a sneaky suspicion that you might not be including the right termination character for your device at the end of the string you send to VISA Write.  That's a fairly common beginner's oversight and can result in your symptom -- no bytes received back from the device b/c it never processes your command without that term char.

    You'll need to consult your device's communication manual, but it's pretty likely the necessary termination will be a carriage return (hex 0x0D), a line feed (hex 0x0A), or both in some order.

-Kevin P