Communication with Gilson Pump

[justonwo30]

I have a Gilson 305 HPLC pump that I have found myself in need of communicating with via LabVIEW.  To my dismay, the communication protocol seems to be rather complicated.  I'm wondering if there is someone out there in the NI world that can help get me started?

So far, I have found that I need an RS-232 to RS-485 converter.  I'm not sure if a generic one will work or if I need Gilson's special converter (the 605 RS-232 adapter).

Furthermore, will I need to do a bunch of low-level serial communication coding?  I found some Gilson VIs (library called GGSIOC.llb).  Will those work?

This seems a bit more complicated than it needs to be.  I really only need to send a few commands to the pump and not much more.

[TobyHex]

Hello JustonWo30,
I have looked at the product specification for the Gilson 305 and under the Communication interface it lists RS-232 as an acceptable solution. Therefore I am unsure as to why you would need to purchase a RS-232 to RS-485 converter. As for the premade library, unfortunately we at National Instruments do not support any of the third party drivers found on www.ni.com/idnet , but it does appear that if you were to communicate to your device through this interface, these would be a valuable asset to your LabVIEW coding as they are a pre-made package for this communication protocol. That being said, I am not aware if they are instrument specific or not so there might be a need for some testing on your end. As for a simply way of commnunicating with the device you have, once you have your PC connected to the Gilson 305 through a serial(RS-232) port, you will simply need to load up the serial example that comes with your version of LabVIEW.

This can be found by navigating to a blank VI, then to the Help Menu in the top right of your blank VI. From there you will need to select Find Examples, and then select the middle tab named search. Type in the search you would like, Serial, and then select from the examples that are found, I would recommend the Basic Serial Read and Write.VI . This should allow you to communicate to your device as long as you have not only set all of the communication factors necessary for your device as determined in your manual, as well as the proper code sequence and termination characters being used in communication. Overall this should allow for a very simply communication with your device with the help of LabVIEW.
Thanks again and have a great day!
Regards,

Nicholas K

[NathanT]

Nicholas_K,
          Your information is incorrect, NI actually does actually support a large number of the instrument drivers on IDNet (ni.com/idnet).  It will be indicated on the Instrument Driver's page whether or not it is NI Certified and NI Supported.  NI is actively developing Instrument Drivers for third-party instruments and we are happy to receive Instrument Driver submissions from anyone and we will post them on IDNet.  If the developer would like for them to be NI Certified and NI Supported, the driver must meet our required Instrument Driver Guidelines.
          In this case, the current Gilson Instrument Drivers on IDNet are neither NI Certified or NI Supported, but like you said are a great starting point.

Cheers,

NathanT