Magnetic Field Meter labview

[ajmlegend]

Hi LabVIEW people
I am working on project that requires communication with TENMAR TM-197 magnetic field meter.
The issue is that there is no programming guide nor any information about the communication synax.
I have managed to communicate with the device with command data:read?, but the result is a mess and I can’t figure out what’s where.
An example:
The measurement was 19degC and 21.4 mT, and the readout was:
#S00D600BC045000420011!#UFFFF1605110F302800BC0080D7!#S00D700BC045000420011!#S00D700BC045000420011!#S00D600BC045000420011!#UFFFF1605110F302900BC0080D7!#S00D600BC045000420011!#UFFFF1605110F302A00BC0080D7!#S00D700BC045000420011!
I also send a query *IDN? But the result wasn’t helpful as well:
#UFFFF16051110143400B80080D6!#S00D700B8045000420011!#S00D600B9045000420011!#UFFFF16051110143500B80080D7!#S00D700B8045000420011!#UFFFF16051110143600B80080D7!#S00D700B8045000420011!#S00D700B804500042001
Did anybody was working with TENMAR meters before? I don’t expect that you have worked with the TM-197 model, but if it is possible that the syntax will be similar in other meters of TENMAR.
I have wrote an email to TENMAR, but I doubt that I will get satisfying response (and not soon for sure).

• Any help will be appreciated.

[rolfk]

Sending "*IDN?" to a device that responds in such a cryptic way is certainly not an option. "*IDN?" is a SCPI command and devices that understand SCPI are supposed to respond in the according way which is a text string identifying the device.

Your response is most likely some error indication, saying pretty much "I don't understand what you are talking about, try again"

The protocol looks like it is using a letter followed by a number that indicates the type of message. But without a documentation about that protocol you can probably continue to try to make sense of that gibberish until hell freezes over, or if you prefer until the universe dies.

[Defaphe]

Does the device send something even if you are not asking anything ?

If yes, by sniffing and retries you can maybe figure where the measure data is located in that blob.

[Henrik_Volkers]

Maybe it's always sending... maybe it just reacts on the "?" or \n ....

maybe it's not 8N1 ? or another baudrate ?  (but seems to be OK ...)