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Using IVI.Driver and AgilentE36xx.Interop references (Visual C 2010)

Question asked by mossman on Jan 17, 2014
Latest reply on Jan 31, 2014 by mossman

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I am having difficulty determining how to set my E3631A power supply to remote mode using the GPIB interface. I am using a USB to GPIB adapter and am using reference files Agilent.AgilentE36xx.Interop and associated files (Ivi.Driver.Interop, etc). It worked initially when I ran my program (snippets acquired from sample code CS_Example1.cs in IVI foundation directory), but now it is in local mode and I can't get it back to remote mode. I see a "DisableLocalControls" method System class, but nothing to set it to remote mode.

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MattC Jan 17, 2014 2:53 PM
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If you are using it in GPIB nothing should randomly take it out of remote. Can you post your code here?

Any command sent over GPIB should put the unit back into remote mode after it is switched to local.

Are you getting errors because of this?
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- mossman @ MattC on Jan 30, 2014 6:01 AM
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  I decided to control the power supply over RS232 instead, but I am still confused as to how to control the E3631A properly using the USB-to-GPIB controller (model 82357B). I don't have an awful lot of programming experience but know enough to create some basic applications. Can someone explain the function of the IVI drivers and how they are used to control the power supply? The example code provided by Agilent is not working in Visual Studio and it is quite confusing to me. Is the idea to "talk" to the driver and then the driver talks to the instrument? And what the heck are all of these IAgilent... classes popping up in the intellisense window?
  
  Update: I'm currently reading through the help documentation provided with the Agilent IO Library suite and it is quite helpful. I'll post back with more specific questions if I have any. It's beginning to make sense to me...
  
  Edited by: mossman on Jan 30, 2014 7:00 AM
  
  Edited by: mossman on Jan 30, 2014 7:01 AM
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  - mossman @ mossman on Jan 31, 2014 7:11 AM
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    My code and instrument communication is working pretty well now. The only issue I am having now is I keep getting error -410 (query interrupted). This started happening when I added a backgroundworker to my code, which queries the power supply every 500 ms to measure the voltage and current (MEAS:VOLT:DC?, MEAS:CURR:DC?). The backgroundworker alone works fine, but often times when I click my apply button to change the voltage or current, I will get the error. My assumption is that the backgroundworker is in the middle of querying the instrument when it gets another query because of my button press. What is the best way to prevent this from happening? Is there a way to clear the power supply's output buffer just prior to sending the next query so it doesn't complain? Should I be using the *OPC command (operation complete) to check the status register before sending a query to ensure there are no conflicts? FYI, the while loop in my background worker executes every 500 ms. Increasing this interval does not seem to help with the conflicts.
    
    I added a list box to my form to track the command being sent to the power supply. The error is occurring when a command is being sent without a read being performed first. For instance, MEAS:CURR:DC? is sent by my Do_Work loop and when I manually click my SetVolt button the command VOLT is sent. Since the buffer contains data and I did not read it before sending another command, I am getting an error. How do I clear the read buffer while retaining my voltage and current settings? I tried "FlushRead()", but that doesn't work.
    
    Edited by: mossman on Jan 31, 2014 8:08 AM
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Using IVI.Driver and AgilentE36xx.Interop references (Visual C 2010)

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