remote GPIB

[RT56]

Good Day, Ladies and Gentlemen.  I am trying to read a TRAK Microwave GPS clock.  The clock is a GPIB instrument attached to a 488 card in a remote PC.  The VISA address for this device is GPIB0::7::INSTR.  I want to issue the command "RQLT\r", but have not been successful.  See attached screen shot.

I suspect the problem is the instrument address.  I have no problem accessing the clock using Vee Pro.  I thought the instrument may not yet be registered with LabVIEW, but cannot find any app to pull this instrument in.

[Dennis_Knutson · Accepted solution]

If you are going to use a VISA resource name, you have to use VISA functions. If you are going to use GPIB functions, you have to use a GPIB address (i.e. '5'). I would recomend using VISA. You will also need to enable remote VISA on the other pc.

[PhillipBrooks]

For remote visa, you need to provide a fully qualified path to the instrument.

I haven't done this for a long time, but it should be the name or address of the computer hosting the gpib board followed by the board number, address and type:

something like: 

visa://192.186.1.23/GPIB0::7::INSTR

You also have to have the NI-VISA Remote Server running on the computer hosting the GPIB card. 

See this Knowledgebase entry: Remote Instrument Control with NI-VISA

[RT56]

Dennis and Phillip, thanks for the feedback.  I have changed over to VISA protocols.  Phillip, thanks for the resource name format.  That was a piece of information that I was looking for.

Having taken this into account, I was successful in reading the clock once, but have not been able to duplicate the result.  Interestingly enough, the visa://[ip address]/GPIB0::7::INSTR results in an execution error that complains that the resource name cannot be parsed.  If I use the GPIB0::7::INSTR, or the VISA alias, the VI runs with an instrument error.

I am running Agilent VISA.  LabVIEW is configured to look at this resource for VISA instrument connections.

I'm stuck now.