NI Instrument Simulator Model No: 183913C-01

[ceilingwalker]

Hello, I just finished the LabVIEW Core1 training online, that came with the purchase of LabVIEW 2014. I am VERY new to the NI world. I purchased an NI Instrument Simulator, Model No. 183913C-01 Rev: 1. I am trying to establish communications with this simulator and not having much luck. I am connecting the simulator to my laptop via RS232 to USB Keyspan device, as my laptop does not have a serial connection port. It shows to be on Com4. I think I set the dip-switches properly. I have switch 8 set to G Mode and the GPIB address set to 2 (switch 2 is on, all others are off). I searched online for a demonstration but turned up nothing. I found some simulator posts here but they weren't the model I have. I don't know if I should be using GPIB or Serial connection for this thing. Any and all help would be greatly appreciated.

[ceilingwalker]

I should also add: When I power the simulator on, the "Power" and "Ready" LED's on the device light up. Thank you

[Dennis_Knutson]

Do you have a link for this and its manual? The one I found does not have that part number.

[ceilingwalker]

I attached what I have.

[Dennis_Knutson]

That's a 20 year old manual and the examples use obsolete serial functions and low level GPIB instead of VISA. I would suggest setting it to serial mode and using the basic VISA read/write functions to start with. As a learning/teaching tool, you should be using VISA as that is what you would be using with any code from this century.

[ceilingwalker]

Okay. I will try using VISA settings and run it. Because I am so new to this, I want to make sure, is there any way I could damage the simulator or the computer? The reason I ask is of course because I am using the keyspan serial to USB device. Thank you sir.

[Dennis_Knutson]

No, you cannot damage anything.

[ceilingwalker]

It is from the voice of experience. I once destroyed an Allen-Bradley PLC-5 with this setup, that's why I was reluctant to proceed.

[Dennis_Knutson]

It sounds like you are comparing apples to oranges. You can damage an instrument by applying the incorrect voltage/current to an input but this widget had nothing but simulated data and the programming interface is bulletproof.

[ceilingwalker]

That's correct however, I didn't know the system, at that time. That's why the concern this time, I don't know the system. Thank you for the support.