Time and date stamp

[James.M]

I'm beginning to understand why Bob Schor lost his temper a little bit.

ceilingwalker, if you're stumbling your way through this you need to learn some more LabVIEW basics. When you have a broken run arrow, you click the arrow and it tells you what's wrong. Plus, just telling us that you have a broken run arrow doesn't tell us at all why it's broken. You should look in to Core 1 and Core 2 training. I personally used the SixClear videos to learn the basics.

AND, like I said above, you will need to convert your data to a string in order to write the timestamps and the data at the same time to the spreadsheet. I assume this is your problem.

[ceilingwalker]

Here is what I mean: the moment I press "start" button, it starts a loop that reads capacitance, Dissipation Factor, and an analog input of voltage, triggered every 3-seconds. It puts all three values on the spreadsheet exactly how I want it. What I want it to do is, each time those three variables are put in their own column, on the final column I would like the real time  those samples were taken put in the last column.

[James.M]

Yes, I've understood what you mean for a bit now and I've been telling you what to use, even linking to VIs.

Here is a step-by-step list of what you need to do to get your data to be in the same format as your timestamp:

1. Open the Timing palette, click Get Date/Time in Seconds, place it inside your loop.
2. Open the Timing palette, click Get Date/Time String, place it inside your loop.
3. Wire the output of Get Date/Time in Seconds to Get Date/Time String.
4. Concatenate the outputs of Get Date/Time String
5. Place Number to Fractional String inside your loop.
6. Wire array of data (capacitance, dissipation factor, voltage) to the Number to Fractional String VI
7. You now have all of your data and timestamps in the form of strings. Build an array of all of these strings and write to spreadsheet. If you want the timestamp as the last column, then build the array with the timestamp after the data. Surely you can figure that part out now.

[Dennis_Knutson · Accepted solution]

You should really learn this sort of basic task. It sounds like the values you have now are numeric. If you want a strng as the time, then all values in an array must be strings. Convert your dbl/sgl values to strings so that you can add a string timestamp.

Describing your current program is just not nearly as clear as posting the actual VI.

[Bob_Schor]

Cheers, James.  I didn't "lose my temper", but I did "lose my patience".  Have you noticed how readily our requests to "Show your code" are ignored?  I do look, now and then, to see "what's next" in the "do my work for me" requests, but I'm (sadly) resigned to "You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make him (or her) drink".

BS

[James.M]

Oh, yeah "patience" is more accurate.

I've just recently decided to get more involved in the forums here. I started with the /r/LabVIEW subreddit a while ago, but it's just so dead it's hard to keep motivated to help out. I'm still learning the best way to help people without enabling too much.

I try not to give full solutions here for that "do my work for me" reason, though I have gone a bit too far a few times. It's a fine balance.

[ceilingwalker]

This took me all of about 5 minutes to do. Thank you for the advice. Thank you all you guys for your help. This is in no way negative but I wanted you to know, I would much rather be taught to fish, than to be given a fish. I enjoy building things myself, but am not afraid to ask for help, but I certainly do not want someone to do my project for me, as it was made to appear in the comment above. I have been through Core's 1, 2, and 3 but I have a very hard time understanding and until I can apply what I have learned to something real, I don't learn much. Just thought I would throw that in. Again, thank you all for your input.

[James.M]

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@ceilingwalker wrote:

I have been through Core's 1, 2, and 3

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How long ago was this training, or how often do you work with LabVIEW? I'm asking purely out of curiousity. Timestamps and converting to strings are two subjects that should be the bottom line for beginner LabVIEW ability, or at least the ability to debug a problem like a broken run arrow.

In this instance, if you only spent all of "5 minutes" on this, it's a bit disrespectful to us when we're spending much longer than that explaining it to you. These problems, especially with Core 1/2/3 under your belt, could have been solved using an extra 5 minutes on google.

The post you marked as a solution was the same information that I supplied before your first reply in this thread, so it even seems like you didn't even read the replies. This is similar to what Bob Schor mentioned in your other thread.

[ceilingwalker]

I know what a broken arrow is, and I know how to use it. I must have used it well in my sentence. All I wanted to do was make sure you knew, after all that you guys told me to put in, I was getting a broken arrow, nothing more. It was my way of saying "I am not getting the same result you guys are". Since April of this year I took Core 1,2 &3 online. This project I am building is the only LabVIEW experience I have. It has been a good project to cut teeth on. Other than that, I have never worke with LV, only PLC and HMI software. Please remember, you don't know who the person is asking the question. Think you can sniff out those looking for a hand-out and those that are just struggling yet want to learn. I support others on PLC forums so I get your frustration. Trust me, I didn't want to have to ask for help. Thankfully you guys were here to help and the situation was resolved.

[James.M]

Good luck with the rest of your project, let us know if you get stuck again.