Physical RTSI Connection

[otheredward]

Dear All,

I'm using LabVIEW 8.5 on Windows XP with legacy DAQ and a 6602 board with a SH68-68-D1 cable.

I have an external device I would like connected to either counter 1's gate or source pin. I was hoping I could internally route an arbitrary PFI to, say, RTSI line 0 and then internally connect RTSI line 0 to either the gate or the source. Unfortunately it appears arbitrary PFI lines cannot be connected to any RTSI lines. I am wondering, then, if there is a way to physically connect my external device to any of the RTSI lines. Perhaps some of the pins on the 6602 board labeled as "Reverved" are in fact connected to RTSI lines? Seems unlikely but I thought I'd ask.

Regards,

Ed

[otheredward]

Or, as a follow up question, does anyone know what, in DAQ legacy, the counter Set Attribute -> Source Selection -> Other Counter Gate does? Other Counter Gate is listed as an accepted choice for source selection but no explanation of Other Counter Gate is give nor can any be found in any the 6602 user manual manual, the Traditional NI-DAQ user manual, the help files under the help menu in labview, or google.

Best,

Ed

[Beutlich]

Hi Ed,

When you look at the device in MAX, you can select to view the device's Routing Table for possible routes. Looking at the 6602, it seems like every PFI line can route to any RTSI line except RTSI 7, but there are more restrictions for routing the RTSI line to a PFI line. Only PFI8 and 9 can route directly, but there are some options for indirect routing on a few other PFFI lines. Indirect routing will use up other subsystems on the board, which you can check by hovering your mouse over the yellow block, then the bottom left corner of the Routing Table will populate the name of the subsystem used. You can also get a more detailed list of all the lines used to make that route possible by Shift-Clicking on the yellow block.

The reserved lines are not intended for any application. Don't use them.

The 'Other Counter Gate' refers to the gate of the 'other counter' which refers to a counter pairing in Traditional DAQ. The Traditional DAQ help files have a article page titled 'Other Counter Definition (ND_OTHER_GPCTR_TC) Table: GPCTR_Watch'. Here is a copy of the table from that article:

gpctrNum	Other Counter: E Series and 44XX Devices	Other Counter: 6602 and 6608 Devices	45XX and 6601 Devices
ND_COUNTER_0	ND_COUNTER_1	ND_COUNTER_1	N/A
ND_COUNTER_1	ND_COUNTER_0	ND_COUNTER_0	N/A
ND_COUNTER_2	N/A	ND_COUNTER_3	ND_COUNTER_2
ND_COUNTER_3	N/A	ND_COUNTER_2	ND_COUNTER_3
ND_COUNTER_4	N/A	ND_COUNTER_5	N/A
ND_COUNTER_5	N/A	ND_COUNTER_4	N/A
ND_COUNTER_6	N/A	ND_COUNTER_7	N/A
ND_COUNTER_7	N/A	ND_COUNTER_6	N/A

So for the 6602, the 'Other Counter Gate' refers to a different counter gate depending on which counter the task is configured for.

[otheredward]

Hi Eric,

Thanks for the information. I hadn't noticed there is a device routing tab in the Measurement and Automation Explorer for DAQmx, thanks. I am, however, stuck using Traditional (Legacy) DAQ. The only way I know to route signals in DAQ Traditional is with the "Route Signal" VI. If you check under the "Detailed Help" for this VI you can link to a list of "Possible Legal Combinations of signal names and signal sources for NI-TIO-based devices." I've attached a screen shot of the table and it show more restricted routing possibilities then the routing table in MAX. I don't know if this is strictly a software thing or if one table is wrong. Do you? Regardless, at this point, as mentioned, I'm stuck with traditional DAQ. As you can see in the table, for the Route Signal VI individual PFI lines can be routed, but only two the counters they're already attached to. For example, PFI line 10 can be routed to Counter 7 Gate. But PFI 10 is already the counter 7 gate connection so there isn't much point.

Thanks for the table of 'Other Counter Definition' when I search of the title of that table in my copy of LabVIEW or in the DAQ documentation in MAX I can't find it. But I have read that each counter is paired with another so it makes sense the 'other counter gate' is referring to its counter pair.

I have successfully used the Route Signal VI to route counter signals to and from RTSI lines after creating a counter group and thus getting a task ID. But lets say I just want to route PFI line 10 to RTSI 0, is there anyway to generate a generic task ID not associated with a counter group? If I try and route a PFI line to an RTSI line with a task ID generated from a grouping of counters I get an error saying its not a legal combination of sources and signals. I've attached a screen shot of a VI doing this.

Thanks,

Ed

[Beutlich]

I am not aware of any additional limitations to the Traditional DAQ driver for routing signals, just a different API. Do you get the same error when you move that routing to before the Control Counter VI? I know that the DAQmx has a state diagram to show when hardware can be configured, and certain kinds of configurations are not allowed while a task is running. This document compares the Control Counter VI to DAQmx Stop, so it may change states of the task from unreserved to commited. From what I see, that routing should work. Let me know if changing the order of VIs changing the error.

The document I read the table from was the 'Traditional NI-DAQ Function Reference Help'. The website on DAQ documentation lists it and other good resources available on Traditional DAQ (see the Traditional DAQ subsection).

You will need a task for your signal routing, since this provides reference to the board. However, I think it is possible to have a dummy task that does not actually run, and changing the routes on that will change the routing on the board (and affect other tasks). This is typically a poor approach, since the behavior modification is not attached to data flow, so I discourage you from using a dummy task to rout signals, but it is possible.