Bulk In Pipe is -1, Bulk In Status is Invalid

[FierceGeek]

I'm creating a new driver for an old piece of equipment, a Canberra iSolo Alpha/Beta Radiation Counter.  The manufacturer does not supply an independent driver with the instrument.  I'm forced to use USB RAW since I don't believe the tool is USBTMC compatable.  I've created a USB driver using the VISA Wizard and it looks like it's almost all there, except I get a VI_ATTR_USB_BULK_IN_STATUS with an Invalid Property Value, the instrument appears to not support Bulk In Pipe so that attribute is set to -1.  Why is the value for the status invalid?

Cheers,

Boyd

[hnesmith]

Hello Boyd, 

-1 indicates the bulk-in-pipe status is unknown. have you tried communicating with your device? if so, did you received any other errors? 

[FierceGeek]

I get the following error...

Write Operation (*IDN?\n)
Error

VISA:  (Hex 0xBFFF0015) Timeout expired before operation completed.

Cheers,

Boyd

[nyc_(is_out_of_here)]

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@FierceGeek wrote:

I get the following error...

Write Operation (*IDN?\n)
Error

VISA:  (Hex 0xBFFF0015) Timeout expired before operation completed.

Cheers,

Boyd

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Old test equipment will not respond to the *IDN?  query.

You'll need to find another query that works for it.

[FierceGeek]

*IDN? is a query that's listed in their communcation protocol.

Thanks,

Boyd

[Dennis_Knutson]

Did you get the low level details on the instrument's protocol before using the wizard? Not much sense if you haven't.

Before you used the wizard, how did the instrument appear in Windows device manager? The product page says it has an RS-233 port. Why don't you use that?

[FierceGeek]

I do have the details of the instruments protocols, see attachment.

Originally the instrument appeared as HID (Human Interface Device). 

The instrument is currently in use using the vendors software via the USB port.  Using the USB port it is expected to minimize impact to operations, hardware and development time.  And I do not have an RS232 cable for a PC/iSolo connection.

Cheers,

Boyd

[Dennis_Knutson]

That document does not appear to explain the USB RAW protocol at all. The fact that it is currently in use with the Windows HID driver means you have not replaced it with the VISA driver.

[Dennis_Knutson]

There are a couple of articles on replacing the hid driver with VISA. Please do a search.

You should also refer to a series of nuggets written by Intaris: http://forums.ni.com/t5/LabVIEW/Nugget-1-of-n-GEtting-started-with-USB-communication-via-VISA/m-p/74...

It is not as simple as using the ASCII commands for RS-232 as you appear to be using.

[FierceGeek]

The iSolo origanially appeared as a HID, after creating a driver using the wizard it now shows up, please see attachment.