NI Serial Port / Eurotherm Temperature Controller

[Benny2416]

NI Serial Port / Eurotherm Temperature Controller

I am using a N.I. AT 232/4 board with four additional N.I. serial ports. First of all, after installing Windows NT (before I was using Windows 98) the NI Serial Port Diagnostics Program was not able to detect any of the ports even though the ports are correctly installed within Windows. When I was still using Windows 98 the NI Serial Port Diagnostics Program was able to detect all the four ports. Is it necessary that the diagnostics program detects the ports in order to use them with Lab View? I have also two regular Serial ports, which have never been detected by the diagnostics program, but I should still be able to use them with Lab view as well? D
oes the NI Serial Port Diagnostics Program not function with Windows NT? Do you have an update version for Windows NT?
I�m trying to control a Eurotherm 2416 and 903 Temperature Controller with two serial ports. Unfortunately, Eurotherm does not give support anymore about Lab View drivers for their Controllers, since they have developed their own Automation Program (iTools) now. I still want to control the Eurotherm Controller with Lab View via the serial port. Do you still have the driver VI�s for the 2416 and 903? It would be nice if you could send me the Eurotherm divers also along with some documentation.
There is already a question posted about Eurotherm Controller (Eurotherm Temperature Controller not Functioning with NI Serial Board). It is probably a similar problem unfortunately the solution did not bring the right success. Therefore, I would like to ask you to specify the so-called 4-Wire mode.
Thank You very much for Your help!

Sincerely,

Benjamin Thoma

[Kim L]

NI-Serial 1.45 does not install correctly on Windows NT Server 4.0 Terminal Server Edition. The driver (serial.sys), configuration utility (niports.cpl), and inf file (niserial.inf) are installed incorrectly to the user profiles directory.
A workaround is to copy the files to the right folders which is detailed shortly.
Definition: "%windows%" refers to the operating system folder. Note: The default operating system folder for this version of Windows is "Wtsrv".
serial.sys - %windows%\system32\drivers
niports.cpl - %windows%\system32
niserial.inf - %windows%\inf
Note: "niserial.inf" does not need to be copied unless an AT card is being used.
The above files can either be obtained from the installation CD in the WinNT folder or from the hard-disk locations that they were
incorrectly installed to which are detailed shortly. Note: Leaving the incorrectly installed files where they are will not harm the system. Definition: "%userid%" refers to the ID that was used when logging in to Windows.
serial.sys - %windows%\Profiles\%userid%\Windows\system32\drivers
niports.cpl - %windows%\Profiles\%userid%\Windows\system32
niserial.inf - %windows%\Profiles\%userid%\Windows\inf

For the newly copied driver to take effect the system must be rebooted.

As for the instrument drivers, you can search our instrument driver site to try to find them. Go to "other driver resources" at the link below.

http://zone.ni.com/idnet/

For more information on the 4-wire mode, see chapter 6 of the "Serial Hardware and Software for Windows User Manual". I have included a link to the manual.

http://digital.ni.com/manuals.nsf/caba5d53e9b015a186256793004eebb7/d1260d4fb98e3f228625699f005968d1?OpenDocument

Kim L.
Applications Engineer
National Instruments

[Benny2416]

Hello Kim,

thanks for your answer!

1. I am using Windows NT Workstation. Therefore I do not have the folder structure as you described.
2. I already searched the instrument driver site. Unfortunately without success. I have some drivers already from NI 1993 just without documentation.
3. I already have the Serial Hardware and Software for Windows User Manual. But that one sentence about the 4-wire mode did not explain it very detailed.

Sincerely,

Benny