Experience in programming LabVIEW with HP E1432A

[Ian_Ren]

Can someone share his/her experience in controlling HP/Agilent E1432A VXI module?

The last posting on the forum about HP E1432A was dated in 2001. I know NI has a LabVIEW plug&lay instrument driver (wrapper) now for the E1432A module.

How easy is it to synchronize multiple E1432A modules in a VXI chassis? and what is maximum numbers of channel and sampling rate you used successfully via an NI VXI-1394 (FireWire).

You help is most appreciated.

Regards

Ian Ren

[JustinBritten]

Hello Ian,

NI does now have an instrument driver for the HP E1432A. This instrument driver is written in LabVIEW and will work in version 6.1 or higher. When calculating the maximum number of channels and the maximum sampling rate, you should examine the bus limitations for FireWire. If each sample is 2 bytes then you can perform some simple math to calculate how much data will be pushed across the bus depending on the sample rate used and the number of channels. Simply take care not to exceed the bus limitation for data transfer rates.

Here are two Knowledge Bases which may help to explain the maximum transfer rate allowed by the 1394 (FireWire) architecture.

KB 25N9J70Z: VXI-1394 Common Questions
http://digital.ni.com/public.nsf/websearch/F7C314
39575753E7862569DE005B68F5?OpenDocument

KB 2Q9DT4TJ: Remote VXI Controllers Comparison
http://digital.ni.com/public.nsf/websearch/473006AF3A3443A286256C4E006DB501?OpenDocument

Best Regards,
Justin Britten

Applications Engineer
National Instruments

[harene.pitter@tripointglobal.com]

Hello Justin,

I downloaded the driver from NI for this insrument. The first thing that I tried to do is to run the "hpe1432 Initialize.vi". The instrument access light lights up so I know that something is happening but when the vi stops I have an error code "-1073807360 occurred at hpe1432 Initialize.vi" and a message stating:
Possible reason(s):
Driver Status: (Hex 0xBFFF0000) VI_ERROR_SYSTEM_ERROR
And the same goes for other vi's.

I haven't a clue what could be causing this. Any ideas?

[craigherdman]

harene.pitter@tripointglobal.com,

Unfortunately this instrument driver is not supported or maintained by National Instruments but I'll try to help where I can. Hopefully someone in the community with more experience with this wrapper/driver can help out. I would recommend downloading the latest version of NI-VISA from our website found here:

NI-VISA Download

Let me know if that helps!

Craig H.
NI Applications Engineering

[MorrisMinor]

I have used the "COM measurement engine" with multiple E1432A.s, it is available from VXI technologies. You then use LabView active x commands to drive the device (They are all very well described in the help file). N.B. You have to install the Agilent I/O Libraries (Agilent download) and the E1432A pnp drivers (VXI Technologies) first. There is example labview code and the help from within LAbView on the properties and methods all work fine, it is much easier to use these DSA devices this way than getting down to register level commands. The program will also run without hardware in a simulation mode.
Hope that helps

[Ian_Ren]

MorrisMinor

1)      Which VXI control module do you use?

2)      How many E1432A do you have in the chassis?

3)    How much does the “COM measurement engine” cost?

Thanks.

Ian

[MorrisMinor]

Hi, Chris

I used the Agilent E8491B, IEEE1394 Firewire interface. With MS Windows 2000 & LabView

I think i had 4 E1432A cards (64 chns)

The COM measurement engine software was a free down load from VXI Technologies who have taken on production of the 1432 type of cards from Hewlett Packard / Agilent it enables you to use active x to control the cards it originally was also provided free from Agilent. But looking at their (VXI Tech) site today I do not see it, suggest you ask them they may have changed the name.

I add here the text supplied with the software help file to give you some more idea of what it does.

"ME4X library is created on top of the E1432 Plug and Play driver.  One question is whether you should use ME4X or the Plug and Play driver when you create an application.  ME4X has both advantages and weaknesses against using the Plug and Play driver.   The biggest advantage is the ease of use.  It is possible to build an application with less than 1/10 of development time.   There are some drawbacks.  To make the library easy to use, many functions are hard coded in the library.  This will cause some compromise in the feature set and performance overhead.  Although ME4X covers most applications, there may be a case where a feature you want to use is only available in the Plug and Play library.   If the measurement speed is more critical than flexibility, you may want to write a simple but not flexible program using Plug and Play.   Here are some  general guidelines to determine which library should be used.

· If you want to build an application quickly without learning the hardware detail.     Use ME4X
· If you want to spend more time for data analysis and testing than application development.   Use ME4X
· If you are not comfortable programming in C or other low-level languages.    Use ME4X
· If you already have a working program using Plug and Play, there is no reason to use ME4X.
· Your application must run on HP-UX operating system.     Use the Plug and Play library

· You are a professional programmer, time for program development is not critical, and you want to build an application to get the most out of the hardware in terms of speed and features.   Use Plug and Play library

If you have never written an application for E1432/33/34 VXI modules and are still not sure whether to use ME4X or the Plug and Play library, I highly recommend to start with ME4X."

Hope that helps.

[MorrisMinor]

Hi, I have just had to check out some VT1436 cards which are a newer HP1432A variant produced by VXI technologies. The COM engine installs with the driver software for the card, it is now included within the driver, as before some simple sample programs are included VEE, LabView etc. The drivers are all available on VXI Technologies web site.

[lannick]

Hi,

I use HP 1432A with the ME4X library. I have an error message with my application and also with the labview example available with the ME4X library (time.vi) and only when Iclose the application.

The error message is

Labview application error: The instruction ar "address x" referenced memory at "address y". The memory could not be "read".

It seem that it is the "open" method that give this message.

Regards,
Alain

[Krista H]

Hi Alian,

I am a little confused about what example you are using. Did you download the HP 1432A Instrument Driver from NI.COM\idnet. There is a driver I found here. I want to make sure that we are working with the same VIs. Please let me know where and exactly which example you are working with.