Connecting LV with Fieldpoint

[Steve Hope]

Help!

I am a seasoned LV developer that has to travel to a job where fieldpoint is installed and waiting for my software. I have never used FP before and do not know what I need to interconnect my software to the customers I/O. I am told that it is installed as a network interface and that the test software is working. They have a FP-TC-120 and an FP-AI-100.

Q1. What do I need to do to get the "AI Sample Channel.vi" to run.

Q2. The vi needs DEVICE and a CHANNEL array. Where do these values come from?

Q3. Are there any drivers needed to make the connection beside what is provided by NI for the FP, and the LV Runtime library?

Steve

[Aaron_G]

Steve,

A1) The AI Sample Channel.vi will not run with FieldPoint. FieldPoint has its own API and does not use the DAQ API. With FieldPoint and LabVIEW 7.0 or later, you only need to worry about two VIs; FP Read and FP Write. The FP Read and FP Write VIs both take a FP IO Point reference input (right click, select Create Constant and then Browse for the item you wish). The VIs are polymorphic for your data type to be read or written. Options are Boolean, Boolean Array, Float and Float Array and you should choose the data type based upon the channel you are addressing. FieldPoint is configured via Measurement & Automation Explorer and it sounds like you customer has already done that. If you use the Example Finder in LabVIEW, you should find a number of FieldPoint Examples.
A2) See A1 above, device & channel array are not used by the FieldPoint driver.
A3) You will need LabVIEW and the NI-FieldPoint driver (which requires and includes Measurement & Automation Explorer), nothing else.

Regards,
Aaron

[Steve Hope]

Aaron:

GREAT, and thanks. It all looks pretty simple, but I look through my pallete of vi's and I can not find the FP vi's that you referred to. Where can I find them?

Steve

[LV_Pro]

There are seperate VI's that come with FP hardware, but can be downloaded:

http://digital.ni.com/public.nsf/allkb/7B21ADB6CD5ADCDF86256A3B0052D2A0


Putnam Monroe

[Steve Hope]

Thanks Putnam:

I am using LV 7.0. Will these work for me?

Steve

[Aaron_G]

They are on the NI Measurements>>FieldPoint palette. If FieldPoint was installed on your computer after LabVIEW, they should be installed by default. If not, you may need to re-install the FieldPoint driver.

Regards,
Aaron

[Steve Hope]

Aaron:

Could you double check the instruction under the download message. I downloaded the zip file and placed the files where directed, but no fp vi's. And there are a number of other items in the functions pallete that were not there before (config, serial config, publish, RT). Are you sure that these will work for LV 7.0?

Steve

[Steve Hope]

Putnam:

I am sorry, I put the wrong name in the header...

Could you double check the instruction under the download message. I downloaded the zip file and placed the files where directed, but no fp vi's. And there are a number of other items in the functions pallete that were not there before (config, serial config, publish, RT). Are you sure that these will work for LV 7.0?

Steve

[LV_Pro]

They are refered to as the 7.1 vi's so they won't work with your 7.0. I did a quick search for earlier versions, but NI has them "behind the scenes" if they are on the site. Possibly one of the NI folks that participate can point you to the ones you need.
Sorry that I can't be of more help.

Putnam Monroe

[AlanArmstead]

The fieldpoint driver here will work for LV 7.0 or LV 7.1. You might just need to re-install.
-Alan A.