PXI-1428 and Basler Ace camera, driving TTL_Trig(1) with Camera CL spare

[m_mckee]

I would like to route a signal that would come into y(3)-, y(3)+ (pins 17,16) of the pxi-1428 68 pin connector to come out of TTl_Trig (1) (pin 7). This is supposdely the CL Spare signal from the camera being routed back out so that I can use it to triggern an FPGA.

From the manufacture's ug, The CL Spare data bit is not available when the camera is set for the 1X8-1Y or the 1X10-1Y tap geometry.
The CL Spare data bit is not directly accessible by the camera user. The data bit must be accessed via the frame grabber attached to the camera. Not all frame
grabbers provide users with direct access to this bit. Consult your frame grabber supplier for more information.

[Prickly_Pear]

This is an interesting project that you are working on. I have never heard of anyone trying to use the CL Spare bit as a trigger. This bit was reserved bit in the communication protocol just in case a future version of the protocol needed an additional bit of information.

Could you clarify your question? It is hard to understand what specific portion of this problem you would like to ask the NI community.

Jeremy P.

[m_mckee]

Thanks, Jeremy

But, basically, I'd like to take the pulse signal I can generate on CL Spare in the camera and route it out one of the TTL lines of the PXI-1428.

Can I do this?

 Mike

[BlueCheese]

Any reason why you'd use this "spare" line versus one of the well-defined CC lines normally used for this purpose?

[Prickly_Pear]

It appears that this particular frame grabber does not support triggering through CC lines. Refer to this Knowledge Base document for more information. http://digital.ni.com/public.nsf/allkb/49A701F932DA43818625716A001B4D1B

Unfortunately, I do not know of a way to access the spare bit in order to create a trigger signal. The spare bit was created with the intention of allowing our R&D team to modify the protocol in the future if necessary. I am not aware of any of our users that are using this bit for to MacGyver additional functionality in their hardware. What you are attempting is not a supported configuration for this hardware, but I don't believe that it would hurt anything for you to try. It also might be a good idea to consider purchasing a camera that was designed to supports this functionality.

Good luck!

Jeremy P.

[m_mckee]

Thanks, Jeremy

Looks like I'll be using the camera's GPIO line, then. I'm going to read the level into my RIO, and then use an output from the RIO to trigger a laser.