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vrf Programmatic selection of instruments

Question asked by VRFuser on Sep 7, 2007

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Just set the "Devicename" control input on the direct I/O object.

It does take a little time and I have not tried it with the new ASRL drivers in 14.2. It may be fast enough now with fast cpu's and the latest drivers.

...Rob

Stan Bischof (Richard S) <rsb@soco.agilent.com>

09/07/2007 11:56 AM
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Stan Bischof (Richard S) <rsb@soco.agilent.com>

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Re[2]: [vrf] Programmatic selection of instruments

Richard Wilson <wilsonr@ucalgary.ca> wrote:
>
> Yes, I am using multiple serial RS232 instruments. Each shows up
> under a different COM port so maybe i am chasing the impossible.
>
> > I'm not sure that VEE will allow a
> > direct IO objects to be programmatically assigned to different
> > physical
> > interfaces.

Since with serial devices all you are changing is the address
( 9,10, whatever ) I'd pretty much expect this to work. I doubt
that VEE cares or even knows that 9 and 10 are different physical
interfaces.

You would of course need to set up the interfaces in the IOLIB's
and I suppose you may need to create dummy instruments in the
instrument manager so that it also understands the interfaces,
but otherwise I'd expect this to work.

Stan

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VRFuser Sep 5, 2007 12:37 AM
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Dear All,

Question regarding programmatically selecting instruments: I am use MultiInstruments Direct I/O to control a couple of instruments at a time, but would like to programmatically change the couple of instruments it refers to, i.e., loop through a whole bunch of instruments. There does not seem to be any way to programatically pass instruments to each transaction. Is there any clever way to do this, other than repeat code for each instrument?

Best wishes,
Richard.

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WDrago Sep 5, 2007 7:11 AM
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Hi Richard,

What I do is create an instrument with a generic name (GPIB_Inst) and then pass the address to the direct I/O box. So, with one instrument I can control many just by changing the address.

In VEE prior to 8 you can add an address terminal to the direct I/O box. In Vee 8 you have to use the Function & Object Browser.

Bill

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Richard Wilson [mailto:wilsonr@ucalgary.ca]
> Sent: Wednesday, September 05, 2007 3:36 AM
> To: VRF
> Subject: [vrf] Programmatic selection of instruments
>
>
> Dear All,
>
> Question regarding programmatically selecting instruments: I am use
> MultiInstruments Direct I/O to control a couple of instruments at a
> time, but would like to programmatically change the couple of
> instruments it refers to, i.e., loop through a whole bunch of
> instruments. There does not seem to be any way to programatically pass
> instruments to each transaction. Is there any clever way to do this,
> other than repeat code for each instrument?
>
> Best wishes,
> Richard.
>
>
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VRFuser Sep 5, 2007 10:50 AM
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When you create Serial_Inst you have to assign it to an address. That address will be changed by "IO.Serial_Inst.visaAddress = value".

Put "IO.Serial_Inst.visaAddress" in a formula box and see what it returns. That should be the exact format that "IO.Serial_Inst.visaAddress = value" requires, which could be different from what FindInstrumentUsingVisa returns.

Also, don't use a mutli-instrument I/O box, it's not needed and I don't know how it might affect what you're trying to accomplish. Use a direct I/O box for Serial_Inst instead because that's what "IO.Serial_Inst.visaAddress = value" is referencing.

Bill

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Richard Wilson [mailto:wilsonr@ucalgary.ca]
> Sent: Wednesday, September 05, 2007 1:35 PM
> To: VRF
> Subject: Re: [vrf] Programmatic selection of instruments
>
>
> Dear Bill and Detlef,
>
> I really appreciate your help. I have been playing around with your
> suggestions (I would call it hacking, but I am not that good and
> don't want to insult anyone here ):
> 1. As suggested by detlef, I used the FindInstrumentUsingVisa
> example that ships with VEE to detect VISA addresses (I have three
> serial devices attached).
> 2. As suggested by Bill, I then added a "Serial_Inst" Instrument as
> the generic instrument using Instrument Manager ("Serial_Inst" is
> virtual at this point, it has no physical instrument assigned).
> 3. Then I went to the Function & Object Bowser menu and used the
> Create Set Formula to generate the "IO.Serial_Inst.visaAddress =
> value" object and passed it one of the detected VISA addressees (the
> formula box contains "A[0]"). I had assumed this assigned Serial_Inst
> a physical device (ASRL4).
> 4. Finally I wrote some data to Serial_Inst (note the
> Multiinstrument Direct I/O objects works fine if I choose one of the
> physical devices instead of the virtual "Serial_inst" in the
> transaction box).
>
> Unfortunately, it didn't work! Nothing was sent to ASRL4! Was the
> above what you intended? What did I do wrong?
>
> Best wishes,
> Richard.
>
>

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WDrago Sep 5, 2007 10:57 AM
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When you create Serial_Inst you have to assign it to an address. That address will be changed by "IO.Serial_Inst.visaAddress = value".

Put "IO.Serial_Inst.visaAddress" in a formula box and see what it returns. That should be the exact format that "IO.Serial_Inst.visaAddress = value" requires, which could be different from what FindInstrumentUsingVisa returns.

Also, don't use a mutli-instrument I/O box, it's not needed and I don't know how it might affect what you're trying to accomplish. Use a direct I/O box for Serial_Inst instead because that's what "IO.Serial_Inst.visaAddress = value" is referencing.

Bill

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Richard Wilson [mailto:wilsonr@ucalgary.ca]
> Sent: Wednesday, September 05, 2007 1:35 PM
> To: VRF
> Subject: Re: [vrf] Programmatic selection of instruments
>
>
> Dear Bill and Detlef,
>
> I really appreciate your help. I have been playing around with your
> suggestions (I would call it hacking, but I am not that good and
> don't want to insult anyone here ):
> 1. As suggested by detlef, I used the FindInstrumentUsingVisa
> example that ships with VEE to detect VISA addresses (I have three
> serial devices attached).
> 2. As suggested by Bill, I then added a "Serial_Inst" Instrument as
> the generic instrument using Instrument Manager ("Serial_Inst" is
> virtual at this point, it has no physical instrument assigned).
> 3. Then I went to the Function & Object Bowser menu and used the
> Create Set Formula to generate the "IO.Serial_Inst.visaAddress =
> value" object and passed it one of the detected VISA addressees (the
> formula box contains "A[0]"). I had assumed this assigned Serial_Inst
> a physical device (ASRL4).
> 4. Finally I wrote some data to Serial_Inst (note the
> Multiinstrument Direct I/O objects works fine if I choose one of the
> physical devices instead of the virtual "Serial_inst" in the
> transaction box).
>
> Unfortunately, it didn't work! Nothing was sent to ASRL4! Was the
> above what you intended? What did I do wrong?
>
> Best wishes,
> Richard.
>
>

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VRFuser Sep 6, 2007 1:07 AM
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I'm using VEE Pro 7.0 currently and have been using a similar technique to control several USB multimeters using a generic instrument IO (in my case an instrument called Ke2100_n) and then using:
IO.Ke2100_n.visaAlias = value; to select which DMM to address the commands to.

What you need to do is make sure that you have the IO objects in the same thread as the formula object which changes the value of the address. As soon as execution leaves the thread where you changed the address it reverts back to its original value.

What I did was group the IO objects into user functions and pass the address to the function with a formula object to set the address in each user function.

It's a pity they dropped multi-instrument IO, I will have to rewrite several instrument control libraries before we move to VEE 8.

Dave Evanson
Characterisation Engineer

-----Original Message-----
From: Richard Wilson [mailto:wilsonr@ucalgary.ca]
Sent: 05 September 2007 18:35
To: VRF
Subject: Re: [vrf] Programmatic selection of instruments

Dear Bill and Detlef,

I really appreciate your help. I have been playing around with your suggestions (I would call it hacking, but I am not that good and don't want to insult anyone here ):
1. As suggested by detlef, I used the FindInstrumentUsingVisa
example that ships with VEE to detect VISA addresses (I have three serial devices attached).
2. As suggested by Bill, I then added a "Serial_Inst" Instrument as the generic instrument using Instrument Manager ("Serial_Inst" is virtual at this point, it has no physical instrument assigned).
3. Then I went to the Function & Object Bowser menu and used the Create Set Formula to generate the "IO.Serial_Inst.visaAddress = value" object and passed it one of the detected VISA addressees (the formula box contains "A[0]"). I had assumed this assigned Serial_Inst a physical device (ASRL4).
4. Finally I wrote some data to Serial_Inst (note the Multiinstrument Direct I/O objects works fine if I choose one of the physical devices instead of the virtual "Serial_inst" in the transaction box).

Unfortunately, it didn't work! Nothing was sent to ASRL4! Was the above what you intended? What did I do wrong?

Best wishes,
Richard.

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VRFuser Sep 7, 2007 9:08 AM
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Dear Dave,

Thank you for this useful information. I'll look at this in detail tonight and see if it helps.

As to your question:

> If you are using serial instruments (RS232?) does each serial
> instrument show up as a separate interface?

Yes, I am using multiple serial RS232 instruments. Each shows up under a different COM port so maybe i am chasing the impossible.

> I'm not sure that VEE will allow a
> direct IO objects to be programmatically assigned to different
> physical interfaces.

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