7265 DSP Amplifie communication problem (RS232)

[Kerguidou]

Hi all

I'm really at a loss here and I don't know there to turn to.

Here is how I can best tell the events.

Installed Labview 2009of3 on a 32-bit windows 7 64 bits machine.Ran the VI supplied by ametek to try out basic strings of commands. Managed to communicate a few times with the device and then LV crashed with an internal error that I did not write down and have not managed to reproduce since. However, every single time I try to initialize the device now, the program goes into an infinite loop.  Digging into the code, I find that there is a  1073807339 error, which indicates a time out.  No matter what combination of parameters I try, it never works.  The only one that yields a different mesage is if I change the parity, in which case the visa returns −1073807254, a parity error.  And if I try to override and force into 8 bit 19600 Baud, I get this error sometimes: −1073807253 (a framing error)

Anyways, if anybody has encountered this problem before or knows a really obvious solution that I don't, help would greatly be appreciated.  I have programmed before in Labview but I am in no way an expert.  If you need information, please ask away. 

[ColeTrain]

Hello Kerguidou,

Does this device respond to "*IDN?" ?  This might be a commend to try to just see if you can connect back to the device again.  Also, the reason you saw the parity and framing error is because this machine is built to communicate with a very specific baud rate and parity.  Changing either of these will make it so the computer and instrument are effictively speaking different languages.  

What happens in the code before this timeout occurs?  Are you timing out on a VISA read or is this something else throwing the error?  Have you tried this on any other machines or with different cables?

[Kerguidou]

I can't say if the device responds to to anything: this is in the initializing routine.

In the initialize VI, there is first set of frames to open the communication and it seems to work fine.  There is a second set of frame "Query ID and device type registers."  The problem is located in the read-write in this frame.  Inside this sub vi, for RS232 communication, there is a frame with this comment :"Reads Length, FS Sensititivity and ENBW. to correct DCB output curves".  It gets fed a 1073672694 status, if that can help us figure it out.  A visa read operation will repeatedly time out in there.  It's the same operation that will return the parity and framing error when they happen.  And the VI never gets out of this loop once an error appears.

Sometimes I manage to intialize the device correctly.  Then it will work for a few times and then stop working (presumably after I interrupt my own VIs).  Then, it will never work again if I keep the same parameters and I have to change them to make it work again.  Until it stops working.  This tells me that there maybe a reset problem either in labview or in the device, but I have really tried everything I could think of in terms of resetting correctly everything.

I don't have any other cable to try, since we had to custom build it, but I double checked the connections to ensure everything was ok.  I really hope it's not an intermittent connection problem from one of the wires, but i double checked that already. 

Message Edited by Kerguidou on 03-05-2010 02:12 PM

[Albert.Geven]

Hi

did you get the driver from the ni-site?

or was it on your system already?

maybe a post of the driver shows what happens inside.

[ColeTrain]

Hello Kerguidou,

Since the 1073672694 code is not built into LabVIEW, what does that correspond to?  Is that an Instrument code or probably something that has been built into the driver?  Has Ametek had anything to say about this issue?