Counter problems on PCI-6601

[Michal]

Hi all,

I'm making a sync setup, where one trigger is used to trigger four other events with different time delays. however, there's trouble in paradise...

Basically, I have an external trigger which I route to the gates of counters 0, 1, 2, and 3 on the PCI-6601. All four counters are gated simultaneously. Then I want to use the counters to send out four trigger pulses (one pulse from each counter) with different time delays with respect to the gate signal. I have done this before using two PCI-6024E boards, but now I've bought the PCI-6601 to free those boards, and besides, the single card solution seems much more elegant. Now; ctr0, 1 and 3 are working fine, but for some reason, ctr2 is not working.

I use LV6.1 for this. According to the measurement and automation explorer, there are only two clocks on the board (which I hope is wrong, since ctr 3 works, and since the specs say there are supposed to be 4 counters). So; is this a NI-DAQ problem? Also, I've made all the connections according to the pin assignment for the board, but I'm using (for the first time) a shielded connector block. Is it possible that the connector block pins do not correspond to the pins on the board? Or should I simply suspect a defect board?

The programming is fine, I've tested it by assigning the different settings to the different counters. it's always counter 2 that fails.

Thank you in advance for your comments.

Best regards,

Michal

[gus]

Can you post your code to the forum?

There are definitely 4 counters on the 6601, I believe what you are seeing is the test panels in MAX only show the first two counters because the test panels are shared between E Series (which only have two counters) and TIO devices (which can have up to 8 counters). 

gus....

[Michal]

here is the code.

All the counters do the same thing, except for the different time delays. I don't see why this shouldn't work, so there's something I'm missing here...

m,-

[Michal]

sorry, forgot the attachment.

[Kevin_Price]

I *think* the problem is that the subvi you are using to configure your retriggerable pulses isn't necessarily compatible with your 6601 board.  If you open it up, you'll see calls to counter functions that have a "123" in their icons.  The online help for those functions states that they are compatible with DAQ-STC counters (found on E-series and other cards).  There are other counter functions with a "CTR" in their icons which are stated to be compatible with either DAQ-STC counters or NI-TIO counters.

The 660x family has NI-TIO counters and should be programmed with those other counter vi's.  There's a shipping example with a name something like "Generate Retriggerable Pulse (NI-TIO).vi".   Try using that for each of your 4 counters in turn and see if they each operate correctly.  If so, you can use it as a good starting point for your app.

-Kevin P.

[Michal]

Thanks for the suggestion, I'll try it out.

But isn't it a bit strange that 3 of the counters actually work with the subvi's I'm currently using?

m,-

[gus]

Are you doing anything else at the same time as this VI is running?  You could possibly be hitting the default thread limitation (4 threads) for LabVIEW.  I haven't had a chance to look at all of your code though.