Direct Serial Port Access to PXI-7334?

[yeahman]

Hello,

I need to interface our data acquisition software with a NI PXI-7334 controller.  I see that I can use the NI-Motion library under Windows to interface with the controller.  I have two questions (I couldn't find the answers by searching the NI web site):

1) Since we also support Linux, is there an alternative for this?

2) Is there any documentation for direct serial port control (the application would send commands directly to the controller via the serial port and not use the NI-Motion library)?

Thanks,

Greg

[Jochen]

Greg,

1. NI-Motion is not available for Linux. The only option that we can offer here is the NI-Motion DDK, which provides register level support for the 73xx boards. As these boards don't require DMA bus mastering and interrupts using the DDK shouldn't be too hard. Still, please be aware of the fact, that there is no support available through phone or email for the DDK. If you plan to use these boards as an OEM-product, please contact your local NI sales representative for further options.
   
2. There is no serial port on the 7334, so I don't think, that this is feasible or do you plan to run the PXI system in an real-time environment and send serial commands to the PX controller from a remote PC? Please provide more details.

Thanks and kind regards,

Jochen Klier

National Instruments

[yeahman]

Jochen,

If I understand our customer correctly, they are planning on using the PXI bus - it looks like a serial port module is an option for that configuration.

Thanks for the quick reply - that's what I was trying to find.

Sincerely,

Greg

[Jochen]

Greg,

if you use a PXI system with embedded controller, a serial port as well as an ethernet port are standard, so you could use the PXI-system as a standalone controller that accepts commands from external devices through these interfaces. Other interfaces like CAN, Profibus or other busses are available, too. In this scenario you would have to implement a command interpreter that translates from the external commands to NI-Motion functions.

Please let me know, if you need more detailed information. In this case, please provide a better overview about the system architecture.

Thanks,

Jochen