When do you make new neighborhoods?

[LVKid]

I am new to MAX.

Max has a choice to make a New Neighborhood. Inside the Neighborhood, you

select board pins that carry the characteristics your program needs. In Labview,

you tell the DAQmx "Make Channels" that these pins are ready to use because

the Neighborhood knows what they are. In the Neighborhood, the user can run a

test on the pins to verify they are correct for a chosen purpose.

Can I use one Neighborhood for many DAQ functions, or do I make separate Neighborhoods for each DAQmx Create Channels function call?

[mallorim]

Hi LVKid,

In Measurement and Automation Explorer (MAX), the Data Neighborhood section provides access to descriptively named shortcuts to configured physical channels (what you called pins) on your DAQ card. Basically you can create DAQmx virtual tasks or channels that contain configuration information, custom scales, and channel lists. These tasks and channels can then be referenced programmatically in LabVIEW, shared between computers, and used multiple times. This link is to a tutorial on how to create a task in MAX. In LabVIEW, you can then place down a task constant and reference the name of the task you just created, as can be seen in the screenshot below.

You asked when to create a new neighborhood. As I just stated you can create a task in MAX and run it in MAX to test the data you are receiving. You could also then use that task in a program so that it already has the sample rate, max, and min saved. However, you do not need a task to use DAQ in LabVIEW. You can use the DAQmx Express VI in LabVIEW to create a task, or as can be seen in the DAQmx example programs you can simply use the Create Virtual Channel function to configure a task, using a control to select the physical channels and device to use.

So the summary answer is you do not need a task or channel from MAX’s Data Neighborhood to run a program. The DAQmx Example Programs do not use tasks created in MAX. However, some people who have multiple machines that they deploy their code on like to create channels in MAX and save the configuration with details like sampling rate and then they can export and deploy that task on all of their test machines.

I hope this explanation helps,

Mallori M.

Message Edited by mallorim on 06-23-2008 05:11 PM

Message Edited by mallorim on 06-23-2008 05:12 PM

[mallorim]

Hi LVKid,

Sorry, here are the tutorial links:

Creating a Virtual Channel in NI-DAQmx and using it in LabVIEW

Creating a Task in NI-DAQmx and Using it in LabVIEW

Regards,

Mallori M.

[LVKid]

Oh, thank you so much. The Videos answered so many questions for me.

I do not see the place to give you a rating. You deserve a 5.

LVKid