Monitoring a Test

[UT_Lab]

First off let me say that I am new to Labview so be gentle... Here is my question.

I am running a piece of equipment and at the end of the run I want LabView to send out a Txt Msg saying that the run is completed.

The equipment is hooked up to a regular desk top computer through the serial port. Is there a way that I can monitor the data on the serial port and have labview send out a message when the test is completed. I should also probably mention that I am running Labview 7.0

[ThomasD]

Hello,

if your equipment is connected to the serial port of the PC, it should be possible to communicate the datas with LV. To communicate with devices on the serial port, you should use the VISA-VIs shown in the picture.

To see how to programm the VIs, take a look in the given examples in LV. The examples can be found under Help-->Examples-->I/O Interfaces-->Serial Communication.

Regards

ThomasD

[UT_Lab]

Thank you for the help.. I guess communicate is not exactly the correct terms to use here... I just want to monitor the Serial port and maybe snatch a few bits of info... ANd be able to send out a SMS Msg when the test is done running ...

[ThomasD]

Because I don´t know which kind of datas you are reciving, RS-232 protocol or RTS/CTS or what ever, it should anyway be possible to read the datas in. For example with the VISA VIs I told. The values/datas which are read in, are in a string, from which the interesting values have to been filtered. If you control the interesting datas with the string function palett you can send the sms when the desired value occurs.

What I tried to say, recive the datas, filter the interesting values and operate depending therefrom.

If you have an example of the datas which have to be read in, you can post a picture of them.

Perhaps it is easier to help by seeing the problems, so post a VI or a picture.

I only work with LV 6.i, so if you have a newer version, you have to convert down or make a picture of the blockdiagramm.

[Dennis_Knutson]

Is a program other than LabVIEW doing the testing and serial communication? If it is, you're not going to be able to use LabVIEW to monitor the serial port. Windows prevents you from having access to the same port from different  processeses.

[UT_Lab]

Yes I different program is doing the testing...

[LV_Pro]

I guess the question is how you would know when the test is completed? Is the other program using the serial port to communicate with the test equipment? If yes then you won't be able to monitor that comm port with LabVIEW, but it might be possible to use another comm port to "evesdrop" on the first comm. The real question in my mind is how you would tell when it was done>

P.M.

[UT_Lab]

Ok I guess since the serial port is out .. Let me explain what happens when the test is comlpeted... You get a pop-up asking you save the data from the test... Is there some way for labview to recognize that there is a pop-up on the screen and then send the SMS message....

What I am trying to fix here is... Our lab runs a test that could take 2hours it could take 2weeks.. So instead of having to repeatedly check on the test ... I would like for Labview to send out a SMS message when the test is complete... I already have the SMS part of it setup I just need some way to trigger it....

[UT_Lab]

The equipment software buffers the data until it has completed the test and then asks you to save the data. Is there someway to spy on this information or a way to recognize that windows has put up a pop-up window to save the data... Or maybe a way to monitor the idle state of the Serial ports..