I have an error with the hpe363xa instrument driver. Where do I go from here?

[fconnoll]

I have the latest versions of labview, max, gpib, ivi engine,... I downloaded the hpe363xa driver (for Agilent E3633A power supply). MAX configured the gpib ok (can communicate with instrument and gpib tests run ok). When I run the hpe363xa Getting Started.vi (only changed the Resource Name to match instruments gpib address) I get the following error message:

Error -1074135024 occurred at hpe363xa Configure Current Limit.vi

Possible reasons:

Driver Status: (Hex 0xBFFA0010) Invalid value.

Secondary Error (Hex 0xBFFC0004) Parameter 4 out of range, or error occurred while setting Parameter 4.

Elaboration: Current Limit

---end of error message

This error o
ccurs in the call to hpe363xa_ConfigureCurrentLimit(); in the DLL. The current limit value is ok right up to the function call vi (calls the c function in the DLL), so presumably the "error occurred while setting Paramter 4", whatever that means.

A possibly related issue is that even though I have IVI installed and it shows up under My System\Software in the configuration tree, there is no My System\IVI in the configuration tree (like MAX and other documentation implies there should be). I tried re-installing IVI, but did not try re-installing MAX.

Thanks for any help.

[Kim L]

If there is no "IVI Instruments" showing up in the configuration tree, it is possible that you downloaded the Legacy driver. It is not likely that this is causing the problem since the error is occuring at a specific parameter.

You might try different "Current Limit" values. If you right click on the "Current Limit" contol in the "Getting Started.vi" and go to description and tip, the limits are given.

Kim L.
Applications Engineering
National Instruments

[RayFarmer]

Hi,

Just back from holiday and spotted your question.

I had a similar problem a while back and resolved it with some modifications to the IVI example with IDT 1.1. ( IviDCPwr [MSR] - Output DC Volts.vi ).

Attached is my vi. This vi is intended to run with a sperate Initialise.vi and close vi but as you will see the initialise and close are encased in case statements.

The VI is labVIEW 5.1.1, IVI IDT 1.1 library.

Hope this helps.

Regards
Ray Farmer

[fconnoll]

Thanks for your answers.

An update on my situation:

I figured out that only a few of the hpe363xa subvis did not work (i.e., error such as in my original post). The e3633a has two output ranges, 8 and 20 volts. The help and docs referred to these two ranges but the hpe363xa Getting Started.vi did not contain any subvi to configure this range (as if it would use the default). So, I put an hpe363xa Configure Output Range.vi into the Getting Started vi and then everything appeared to work.

So, for me this problem is resolved.

[JAMoore]

I found that merely setting the "Check Range" option to 0 will fix this problem, too.

[cds]

Both recommended actions worked for me also. It would be nice if NI would take a few minutes and fix their examples to work with all of the power supplies that they list for use with the IVI driver. That way we don't spend hours trying to figure out what we think is our error but is really bad info from NI.