New to LabView... but having some requirements

[Sander Verhagen]

Hye,


I am familiar with electronics schematics and simulation environments like
Orcad/MicroSim or MultiSim or ... etcetera.

Can I do the same in LabView? That is: by using (virtual) conventional
electronics components making up small schematics diagrams but also running
analysis ("Probe").
(With conventional components I mean R/C/L, transistor, ua741, ...)

Why don't I just use one of the spice environments mentioned before? Well, I
see that NI is doing a lot of web based stuff, and that too is a requirement
for me. (Read my assignment below my signature, if you want.)
So I'ld like to have students making schematics over the Internet.

What way to go? And: is LabView (or one of its family members) the way to
go?

I am a s
tudent, working for a technical school; saying the latter to make my
appeal even stronger 😉

Thanks in advance
and all the best,


Sander Verhagen
[ Verhagen@nonono.Sander.com ]


ASSIGNMENT: "Acquire or develop and implement a system that enables students
to carry out lab assignments, either in the class room or at a remote
location, but always in a virtual environment, that nevertheless allows the
use (even though virtually) of traditional components and traditional
measuring instruments, in order to assemble a design from scratch and test
it accordingly."

[Ben]

LV can do this.

It would take a while to develop anything other thatn the most rudementary stuff.

When doing a web based implementation of something like this, I have to ask what kind of user interface do you want to provide? The slicker click drag and drops will require some sort of something be downloaded from the server when someone connects at least the first time. They may be called nuggets or something like that. I have read about but never done anything that complicated involving internet.

If you want to dumb it down a bit, like simply working from drop-downs that would make thing easier. This could be done possibly making use of of one of the Pspice thing that offers an activeX interface would be usefull as well.

What do others think?

Ben

[Sander Verhagen]

Hye,


> It would take a while to develop anything other thatn the most
> rudementary stuff.

Would it take a while "one time" to implement the functionality for our
students? Or would it take a while every time someone wants to build a
schematic that is only slightly more complicated than one resistor and one
cap?

> If you want to dumb it down a bit, like simply working from drop-downs
> that would make thing easier. This could be done possibly making use
> of of one of the Pspice thing that offers an activeX interface would
> be usefull as well.

Do you know any that does offer this?

Thanks again already. Greetings,


Sander Verhagen
[ Verhagen@nonono.Sander.com ]

[Joey Oravec]

Hi,

I totally disagree with anybody else saying Labview is the right tool for
the job. I can't suggest the best tool for the job, but I would defiantely
not think of Labview as a suitable one.

Labview is great for programming tasks. If you only needed digital parts,
you could use something like Xilinx (with the schematic-mode tool plus
simulator) to accomplish your goal of software simulation plus hardware
reality. In the analog world I guess something like electronics workbench,
or mentorgraphics, or orcad, or whatever could meet your needs. However from
your description of this class, the professional tools are going to be WAY
over the students level.

I dont have a good suggestion for over-the-internet functionality. My answer
would be to teach the class using one of these Prentice-Hall textbooks which
would include the electronics workbench on CD for analog/digital simulations
of the course material. When I used one of the EWB versions, it seemed like
a good piece of software for simulation in an intro-level class.

Sure, if you spent WAY too much effort you could "program" the functionality
of each component and muscle Labview into cooperation. However it really
makes no sense for what you are trying to do. The Labview programming model
makes it look and feel like a circuit diagram, but in reality that just
represents the dataflow driven programming language. Wrong tool for the job.

-joey

"Sander Verhagen" wrote in message
news:3d6c2909$0$33230$e4fe514c@dreader4.news.xs4all.nl...
> Hye,
>
>
> I am familiar with electronics schematics and simulation environments like
> Orcad/MicroSim or MultiSim or ... etcetera.
>
> Can I do the same in LabView? That is: by using (virtual) conventional
> electronics components making up small schematics diagrams but also
running
> analysis ("Probe").
> (With conventional components I mean R/C/L, transistor, ua741, ...)
>
> Why don't I just use one of the spice environments mentioned before? Well,
I
> see that NI is doing a lot of web based stuff, and that too is a
requirement
> for me. (Read my assignment below my signature, if you want.)
> So I'ld like to have students making schematics over the Internet.
>
> What way to go? And: is LabView (or one of its family members) the way to
> go?
>
> I am a student, working for a technical school; saying the latter to make
my
> appeal even stronger 😉
>
> Thanks in advance
> and all the best,
>
>
> Sander Verhagen
> [ Verhagen@nonono.Sander.com ]
>
>
> ASSIGNMENT: "Acquire or develop and implement a system that enables
students
> to carry out lab assignments, either in the class room or at a remote
> location, but always in a virtual environment, that nevertheless allows
the
> use (even though virtually) of traditional components and traditional
> measuring instruments, in order to assemble a design from scratch and test
> it accordingly."
>
>

[Ben]

Hi Sander,

As usual you do not want to re-invent the wheel if not absolutely nessesary. That is why I suggested looking for a "Pspice" type app that would support activeX. The ideal case would allow you to drop an activeX window on a diagram, and just let the window do all of the ciagram work. I do not know of one myself. There may not be one.

Abscent that I would look into using a version that I could pump a properly formated file into and get the analysis back. I have not personally done much work with Pspsice so I can not be of much help in that area (I stoped doing circuit diagrams before Pspsice was invented).

In the rudementary version I was envisioning, the user would have a very limited number of of options to choose from. Choices would be something like;

New component >>> resistor
Connect this to that
Choose test signal

These clicks could be detected and used to generate the Pspsice file.

THe "New component" command would put a picture of the component in a picture. This picture could be drawn dynamically by copying a pre-drwan picture to the correct pplace in the picture control.

If the user was running the app on the local machine (non-internet version) they could click on the resistor and move it around. Right-clicking on the resistor could bring up option dialog boxes to determine what the leads are connected to. This would not be straight forward to do over the internet.

Since your assignment is rather non-specific regarding what it would take to enhance, you may want to take the rudimentary route.

How hard it would be to enhance this rudimentary version is dependent on how flexible your code is.

I suggest;

1) Chase down wheels that can be re-used.
2) Specify the most complicated thing you want to do.
3) Specify the simplest thing.
4) Develop app to do simplest while leaving options open for the more complicated.

Over-all this is a rather challenging project to implement in the most exotic manner. When confronting major challenges you generally want to choose the weapon you are most comfortable using (it worked for David when he chose the sling over the sword).

For me, LV is my most familiar weapon. If was being contracted to do this project, I would be implementing as much as I could in LV. Others may favor the sword.

Ben

[Ben]

Hi Sander,

I do not know if you are still watching this Q but I will post anyway.

NI has recently anounced an interface to Pspice!

You are in buisness.

Ben