Hello,
Thank you for choose NI-FBUS products.
At first, please let me introduce the key components of NI-FBUS Configurator 2.3.6.
1) Interface Configuration Utility: it helps you add/edit/delete the interfaces. The 2.3.6 supports 3 kinds of interfaces: ISA, PCMCIA and ControlNet. Please select the interface type according to your hardware.
2) NIFB Communication Manager: it's the server application, which works as a bridge between the physical interfaces and the upper applications (such as NI-FBUS Configurator).
3) NI-FBUS Configurator: it helps you configure the segment. Please be aware that it must work with Communications Manager.
Add/Delete interfaces with Interface Configuration Utility:
1) Add: click "Add Interface Device" in the main window; select the interface type and set the parameters, and then click "Add". Several dialogs (the exact number is decided by the hardware type) will pop up one by one to help you configure the ports of this interface. Please be aware that each port stands for a single segment/link in the bus.
2) Delete: please select an interface from the tree in the main window, and then click "Edit" button. In the pop-up dialog, click "Delete" to delete this interface and all its ports.
The number limitation:
Interface Configuration Utility doesn't restrict the interface number. However, Communication Manager limits the "interface number" to 31. On the other hand, NI-FBUS Configurator pays attention to the "link number"; it supports 4 links/segments as default. You may increase this number by ordering "1 Segment Configurator Upgrade" from NI.
For your reference, the latest NI-FBUS software is version 3.2. The evaluation software is available through the following link.
http://digital.ni.com/softlib.nsf/websearch/F8F368E7A6563319862571E600140826?opendocument&node=132060_US
The 3.2 version provides the offline-mode operations, which can simulate the online operations without any physical interfaces and devices. Hope this is helpful for your experiments. In addition, the manuals and help files could be great helps for sure in some details, even though they differ a lot from the 2.3.6 version.
Hope it helps!
Josiane Zhou
Product Support Engineer
National Instruments
