hp 5385A or hp 5386A LV Drivers? HPIB seems to Predate VISA Spec?

[briancam]

Have 7 GPIB New Instruments and 8 Instruments in PXI Chassis that Function Correctly in MAX.

Want to use OLD HP 5385 or 5386 A Frequeny Counter on same GPIB with NI GPIB controller set to 0.

OLD HP 5385/5386 generates GHOST Sessions in MAX and ERROR 53 appears on LCD of OLD HP 5385/5386?

OLD HP 5385/5386 Manual informs me it is HPIB compatable and I use the old GPIB -- NON-VISA vi's to program the instrument.

However, once it is put on the 7 GPIB New Instruments GPIB, I cannot read the instrument?

OLD HP 5385/5386 seems to predate VISA Standard?  Does it?

Is there any way I can interface the OLD HP 5385/5386 to our 7 GPIB New Instruments GPIB?

[Dennis_Knutson]

There is IEEE-488.1 and IEEE-488.2. Is that the difference you're talking about? VISA will work with instruments written to either standard and you should be able to freely mix 488.1 and 488.2 instruments. It sounds more likely that you might have an address conflict. Make sure that all are unique.

Also if you want to try a VISA driver for the counter, there is one for the HP5384 that might be close enough. You can get it here.

[briancam]

Tried the HP 5384 LV driver --- Same problem, in that MAX gives Ghost Images of GPIB of address HP 5385 or 5386 A Frequeny Counter, used 23.  Ghost Images  ===  MAX rescan for Instruments, MAX Reports Instrument 7- 30 at GPIB 23 and times out.  Still get error 53 on LCD of HP 5385 or 5386 A Frequeny Counter.

HP53131A Frequeny Counter works fine using Address 23 and comes up Instrument 7.  Found some corrected LV Drivers for HP53131A Frequeny Counter in this BB. -- Thanks

[briancam]

If anyone can provide info about hp 5385A or hp 5386A LV Drivers? HPIB seems to Predate VISA Spec please post

Thanks

[Dennis_Knutson]

The instrument drivers you have installed and whether they use VISA or low level GPIB functions have nothing to do with your problems in MAX. Yes, GPIB (IEEE-488) predates VISA. HPIB (Hewlett-Packard Interface Bus) is the same thing as GPIB (General Purpose Interface Bus) but since Hewlett-Packard invented it, some of their literature will refer to HPIB. The VISA API will make calls to the GPIB device driver that is installed for your controller. When MAX does a scan for instruments, it uses (I am almost certain), low level GPIB commands to detect what, if any, instruments are connected. Your problem needs to be fixed first in MAX before you do any programming and is not connected in any way to LabVIEW or the drivers you downloaded. It is almost certainly an instrument problem.

What exactly do you mean by "ghost images"? Also, look in the manual for the HP5386 and see what error 53 means.

[LV_Pro]

In the HP5386 an Error 53 is listed as "Illegal character in the "DR" (remote display) command. The manual, in section 3-143 goes on to describe this command (which writes a string to the LCD display) as being "legal only when the counter is in the measurement mode. If the command is received while the counter is in the diagnostic mode an error will be flagged." So it sounds like there may be some errant characters being sent to the device, or at least it thinks so, which it is registering as a "DR" command. If you have the NI-Spy utility installed on your machine it might be helpful to start it to monitor what is going back and forth when MAX tries to determine what instruments are out there. MAX seems to presume that GPIB (HPIB inAgilent literature) is using the modern SCPI command set where instruments generally respond to IDN?, but many of the older (and not to much older at that) instruments might prefer ID?

P.M.

[briancam]

1. I made a mistake in that HP 5385a & 5386a FC reports error 52 - first character of cmd is illegal, durring MAX times out in the "Scan for Instruments", reported error 53--NOT TRUE.

2. By "ghost images" , I have never seen MAX do this, but MAX times out in the "Scan for Instruments" then reports Instruments 7 thru 30 as GPIB 24 which is what I set the HP 5385a & 5386a FC.

The manual I have for the instrument is dated MAR 1985.

3. The HP8650a SA, I had in another Company, used ID instead of IDN? But setup fine in MAX? 

Is there any Known reason why MAX will not work with HP 5385a & 5386a FC?

[JasonSmith]

briancam,

Are you experiencing these problems when your HP 5385/5386 is the only instrument on the bus, or with the other 7 instruments still connected?  You will want to do your troubleshooting with the HP 5385/5386 as the only instrument on the bus, and then add others once it is working.  Also, have you tried swapping the GPIB cable with another one?

[xseadog]

Hi Briancam
How many instruments are you attempting to use in total? Is it 15 ?
>Your first message indicates7GPIB instruments and 8 viaPXI chasis.

If I recollect correctly is that not a limit of 15 instruments connected to GPIb controller.

Have you attempted to check that there are no address conflicts ?
As stated previously first try and just connect the hp5385A instrument,use NI spy and generic driver (labview)to communicate with recieve commands.
If sucessful add a PXI instruments. Continue to build up instrument stack, also check that all interface cables
as instruments are 'joined' are connected correctly.


xseadog

[LV_Pro]

Brian

When you have the one instrument connected try using a basic VISA GPIB call to see if it talks. This will narrow it down, from possible conflicts with the other instruments. When you say 8 instruments in a PXI, they aren't GPIB, right? What is your configuration? A PXI GPIB controller, 7 GPIB instruments and 1 "HP-IB" old instrument? If you can do a screen capture of the "GHOSTING" and post it here (.jpg or png, NOT .bmp!) it might help us understand what you are seeing.

The attached is a basic visa gpib call, with your adr 23 as default. Try it with the ID? command first. I didn't find a driver in the NI site for this instrument, found one for the 5384, roughly the same vintage. It has a very basic command structure, the query for its ID is simply ID, with no "?".

Putnam Monroe

North Shore Technology, Inc.