How can control my flow mater with Labview?

[dardm80]

I am trying to write a Labview program to control my flow controller.

[Sarah Thompson]

dardm80,

What an interesting application.

How you control the flow meter will depend highly upon the interface between the PC and the instrument. If you are connecting through GPIB or serial, an instrument driver may exist. Just search www.ni.com/idnet for your flow meter. Alternatively, you could use calls to your instrument through VISA writes and reads. There are a few examples within LabVIEW that demonstrate VISA calls. The exact syntax will be instrument specific so you will need to consult the instrument's user manual.

If you are connecting through a data acquistion board, then you will use NI-DAQ VIs in LabVIEW. Again, there are many examples of DAQ input within LabVIEW.

Good luck!

[ran]

hi sarah,
i'm sorry but i just have to write back to you as i'm facing the same problem as the previous poster.

i have mass flow controllers(MFCs). i'm also flowing some gases, say Nitrogen thru a pipe and the MFCs read the flow rate.

i want to create a labview program that will the readings from the MFCs as input and then display it on the front panel. say the MFC reads 1200sccm, i want to display this value on the front panel.

creating the front panel is not a problem. my problem is how to create the program (block diagram) itself.

you said there are examples in labview. can you actually point it out where these can be found in labview?
i think if i get some thing that reads the flow rate, i'll be able to modify it to the job i'm trying to do.


thanks a lot
-r

[ran]

oh, i forgot.
i'm using DAQ card (NI-PCI 6723) AND ADAC card from IOTECH