Vex Controller and Labview

[gsilva_17]

Hello there,

I would like to configure a Vex Controller with Labview, but I cannot read the controller. Any ideas on how to do this?

[MarisolM]

Hello there;

Up to this moment there is no instrument driver to be used with the VEX controllers. 

The only way you can access it is via VISA (serial) commands. The commands should appear in the controller's manual, since they are set by the manufacturer. 

This tutorial might be helpfull to start using VISA

Good luck

[gsilva_17]

I already tried VISA today. It appears the resource name, but I am not able to read any of the comands from the controll, any ideas why this could be?

[MarisolM]

Does it respond to the *idn? command??

Have you tried using the tools in MAX?

[gsilva_17]

No, it does not respond to the command. I haven't tried that, I am a begginner in LabView. What MAX tools can I use to make it work?

[Dennis_Knutson]

What commands are you actually sending? I can't imagine why a idn? query would work since that is a IEEE-488 standard command. You can only send commands that are listed on the manual. You would use MAX to write those commands and read the responses.

[rolfk]

Since a Vex controller seems to be a gamepad, most likely connected to the computer through USB, VISA is most likely not an option (unless you want to program it using the USB Raw interface, which is really not something I would recommend anyone who does not have a deep understanding of low level binary protocols on byte level).

Maybe it is recognized by the OS as joystick device then you can use the LabVIEW joystick interface under Connectivity->Input Device Control.

Google is also a great resource: LMGTFY which would give you a promising link right in the top rank.

However if you want to target the controller directly with LabVIEW then you are out of luck. Creating a LabVIEW backend for a VEX controller to target directly code development on the VEX controller is definitely not something that could be done by people not having very tight connections to LabVIEW R&D itself and since it is using an 8 bit PIC controller probably something which is not even reasonably possible at all.