RS232 Labview driver for SR830 lockin Amplifier

[Nitshu]

Hi,

I want to install Labview driver for Stanford Research SR830 lockin amplifier for RS232 port. NI has drivers for GPIB but I could not find any for RS 232 comm port.

Please let me know how can I find driver for RS232 port.

Regards,
Nitin

[JasonSmith]

Hello Nitshu-

As you mentioned, this driver only supports GPIB, and not RS-232.  This driver was originally created in 1994, so it was not created using VISA.  This means that to convert this driver you would need to essentially rewrite the entire thing.  There are not currently any plans to update this driver to support RS-232, but you could easily communicate with it by adding a GPIB Interface to your system.

Let us know if you have any specific questions we can help answer.

Jason S.
Applications Engineer
National Instruments

[man00604]

Dear Jason S,

I also want to communicate with sr 830 with the RS232 interface. You said I had to rewrite the whole thing. What does that really mean? Rewrite the driver? If so, what language will it be?

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@JasonS' wrote:
Hello Nitshu-

As you mentioned, this driver only supports GPIB, and not RS-232.  This driver was originally created in 1994, so it was not created using VISA.  This means that to convert this driver you would need to essentially rewrite the entire thing.  There are not currently any plans to update this driver to support RS-232, but you could easily communicate with it by adding a GPIB Interface to your system.

Let us know if you have any specific questions we can help answer.

Jason S.
Applications Engineer
National Instruments

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Thank you for answering my question

[Dennis_Knutson]

The language would be in LabVIEW unless you decide to use something else.

You would be replacing the GPIB writes and reads with VISA writes and reads. Any GPIB specific functions (i.e. RQS) would have to be eliminated.

[man00604]

Dear Dennis,

thanks for your reply. Is the method work completely? Since Jason mentioned that the driver is not written in VISA and we had to rewrite the whole thing, I am confused of how that works.

Please let me know if you try that and succeed. thank you very much for your help

[smercurio_fc]

"How it works" is that somebody actually has to rewrite the driver. That driver was not written by NI, so NI doesn't support it. It doesn't say who wrote it, but I'd guess that whoever did is not supporting it either.

If you need the RS-232 version then you'd either have to write it yourself or hire someone to do it for you. If you want to tackle it yourself, I'd suggest starting here:

How to Use an Instrument Driver in LabVIEW Tutorial. That will give you a basic idea of the structure and how it's expected to look. There's also this article: Developing LabVIEW Plug and Play Instrument Drivers

You can create an instrument driver template from LabVIEW using File -> New...

[Dennis_Knutson]

Never did that with this instrument but certainly did it with others and many of the older NI drivers were rewritten with VISA functions. Do you understand the VISA API at all? It is a common API for serial, GPIB, VXI, Ethernet, USB, PXI, etc. Instead of using low level functions such as serial or GPIB, you can use VISA and a single driver can support all of the different interfaces.

I have not looked at the SR830 driver and am unsure as to the effort. As I mentioned, you will be mostly replacing the GPIB Write and Read functions with VISA Write and Read functions. Instead of using a string for the GPIB address, you will use a VISA Resource Control. If the conversion effor is daunting, then write your own, use individual writes and reads instead of a full driver, or use the Instrument I/O Assistant.

Look at the VISA driver for the 34401 DMM that comes with LabVIEW to get an idea of how a single driver can be used.

[smercurio_fc]

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Dennis Knutson wrote: 

I have not looked at the SR830 driver

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Don't. It will just make you cry.

[Dennis_Knutson]

I just did - both look and cry. Probably better off writing from scratch.

[AnalogKid2DigitalMan]

Worse than code written by Newport for some of their motion controllers and instruments?

 "I looked, I cried, I wired from scratch." 😞

-AK2DM