Agilent E3640A power supply with GPIB-USB-HS

[jeet]

Hello everyone, I created an application software to control Agilent E3640A power supply over standard GPIB interface. It works great. Now, I want to replace the standard GPIB interface (with GPIB card) with GPIB-USB-HS adaptor cable, so that I can send commands over USB connection, eliminating the need for GPIB card. How can I use my existing application to work with GPIB-USB-HS adaptor cable? Is it a simple change? or Do I have completely rewrite the code, and if so, are the drivers available for GPIB-USB-HS adaptor cable? Thanks Jeet

[Dennis_Knutson]

Typically, you don't change a single thing. The same driver is used for both types of controllers.

[jeet]

Hi Dennis I tried to use the same software but it was giving me an error. That's why I suspected that I needed different drivers for sending commands to Agilent E3640A using GPIB-USB-HS cable. - Jeet

[Dennis_Knutson]

What was the error? That's vital information you need to provide.

I was also assuming your previous card was from NI

[markus kossmann · Accepted solution]

More information please.

Did you remove the PCI interface before trying the USB interface ? If not, your program still might try to access the E3640A over the PCI card.

Is the USB HS recognized in Measurement and Automation eXplorer as GPIB0 ?

Is the E3640A  recognized if you run Scan for Instruments in MAX ?

Which error(number) is thrown when running your program with the USB HS ?

It would also help if you could show us  NI SPY logs recorded when running your program with PCI card and with USB-Interface 

Usually you don't need to install different drivers, because the NI-488.2 package installs drivers for all variants of NI GPIB hardware.

[jeet]

Markus:

I did not remove the PCI-GPIB card from the computer before trying the USB interface. I will try that tomrrow once I get back to work.

 I will also check if GPIB-USB-HS is recognized in Measurement and Automation eXplorer as GPIB0 and get back to you with all the other details you asked.

Thanks

- Jeet

[jeet]

Thanks Markus and Dennis My problem has been solved. The USB interface cable was detected as GPIB1 because PCI-GPIB was still installed and detected as GPIB0. I removed the PCI-GPIB card after which the USB GPIB interface was detected as GPIB0 in MAX. There was also some other problem with the code also that I had to fix. The code is working now with USB-GPIB interface now. Thanks both! - Jeet