standalone GUI or VI interface with standard RS232 serial PCI card.

[viskid]

Hello anyone,

I am currently working on putting together a simple VI for controlling a laser system (HV on / Laser on / Laser armed / beam on / CW/ Gated / Simmer low / Simmer high / reset). I only have 

• RS232 style EX-41504 – interface card, that can communicate via DB37 connector to PCI bus to the Laser.

I don't have a Ni-DAQ card or anything proprietary LabVIEW to run my VI which I will make it into an executable GUI. 

Can VI or this executable GUI run via interface with this PCI bus serial card?

if so, what can do to achieve this? 

can anyone help me please?

[rolfk]

You most likely mean the EX-41054

This board should come with drivers on a CD. Once you have installed them, Windows will see the 4 ports as normal serial ports. And then NI-VISA will see them too and you can use the VISA functions in LabVIEW.

[viskid]

That's great Rolf,

Thanks for getting back to me. 

I will give it ago.

Would you say I should get it seen and drivers installed on device manager first, before I find it on labview Ni-VISA and set up Visa?

Thanks.

[MaSta]

VISA can only list typical LabVIEW supported hardware you have a driver installed for. For some you may have to enable a passport in the VISA settings when being installed after VISA.

[rolfk]

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@viskid wrote:

That's great Rolf,

Thanks for getting back to me. 

I will give it ago.

Would you say I should get it seen and drivers installed on device manager first, before I find it on labview Ni-VISA and set up Visa?

---

Yes definitely. VISA does not try to access hardware boards directly but relies on drivers to be installed for any hardware. In the case of serial ports it interfaces to the Windows COMM API, and as long as a serial port is not recognized and marked as fully working in the Windows Device Manager, there is no sense in trying to get it working in NI-MAX. And only after you see it in NI-MAX and can open it there, should you attempt to access it in LabVIEW through the VISA functions.