Communication with HP 3457A using HPIB with NI GPIB-USB-HS

[jhanson]

Hello All,

So what i am trying to do is get one of our HP 3457A DMM's to communication via the GPIB bus. This is an older piece of gear that is equipped with HPIB. I have had luck communicating with other HPIB instruments but can't seem to get any queries to execute properly. The device will beep when i execute commands but is not excepting them so I must be missing something. To begin i am simply trying to get a simple response from an identification query. This device is not SCIPI compliant, according to the manual i should execute a command something like OUTPUT 722;"ID?" . According to the manual the "7" refers to the HP-IB select code which default is 7 i am assuming that hasn't changed and the "22" represents the address on the bus which i have confirmed is in fact 22. Also speicficed in the manual is the device recognizes a <CR> , <LF>, or ; as the EOI character. I am using NI-488.2 communicator to test this. Attached is a screen shot of what i am trying to do and what I am seeing.

Any help is greatly appreciated.

Thanks,

Josh

[Dennis_Knutson]

All that you do is write the actual command - ID? - followed by either \r or \n (CR or LF). You skip all of that HP Basic junk.

[jhanson]

Well that was easy I really appreciate it. One thing i noticed i did not even need the CR of LF to return data. I did need to set Terminate Read on EOS byte which is a line feed (byte: 10)  see my example. I hope someone else finds this helpful when trying to interface with a 3457A.  Otherwise it keeps reading until timeout expires. Thanks Dennis!

[rtavakol]

Any idea how to get DCV from hp3457a through GPIB?

I tried ID? command and I saw HP3457A on String received box but, how can I get DCV data?

[FmTesla]

Hello rtavakol

We try to keep one issue per forum. If you want better visibility, you can always create a new forum with your question and you will have more chances of receiving an answer. 

That being said, do you have LabVIEW? You can always use an instrument driver if you do, making things easier.

Agilent Technologies hp3457a Meter - IEEE 488.2 (GPIB) Driver for LabVIEW
http://sine.ni.com/apps/utf8/niid_web_display.download_page?p_id_guid=E3B19B3E95BC659CE034080020E748...

[rtavakol]

---

@FmTesla wrote:

Hello rtavakol

We try to keep one issue per forum. If you want better visibility, you can always create a new forum with your question and you will have more chances of receiving an answer. 

That being said, do you have LabVIEW? You can always use an instrument driver if you do, making things easier.

Agilent Technologies hp3457a Meter - IEEE 488.2 (GPIB) Driver for LabVIEW
http://sine.ni.com/apps/utf8/niid_web_display.download_page?p_id_guid=E3B19B3E95BC659CE034080020E748...

Thank you, It works 🙂

[Benzz_sure]

Hello Rtavakol,

I have downloaded the driver as suggested, but I am still not able to get readings from my meter.  

I know that the meter is connected as I can read the visa address being identified.  As the address of my equipment is '2', I have put '2' in the pink box next to the stacked sequence structure.  I have tried '702' as well but no luck.  What address did you use?

Many thanks in advance.

Ben

[Dennis_Knutson]

What do you mean by 'read the visa address being identified'?

Have you used MAX to test the communication? Can you attach a screen shot from MAX?

[diegosvs]

thank you, my friend. you helped so much

[cstorey]

OUTPUT 722 is a BASIC command to send commands to an instrument over HPIB. Its simlar to the C command ibwrt().

To talk to the instrument thru the NI-MAX test panel all you need is the command and termination characters.  In this case "ID?\r\n" should do the trick.  (You might need either the \r=CR or \n=LF or both.) 

Once you get the commands to work you can use the same string in your ibwrt() or LabVIEW VISA Write commands.

Craig