I have got a 1500 Kinetic Systems CAMAC crate and 3922 controller. I want to use it with LabView inst

[victor 763]

alled in PCI-bus IBM PC, which does not have GPIB interface. Which way would be easier for developing my own instrument driver: a new GPIB controller + interface or 2915 Kinetic Sys. PCI-bus in-slot interface? Can the latter interface be used with LabView?
Many thanks.
Victor. I have got a 1500 Kinetic Systems CAMAC crate and 3932 controller. I want to use it with LabView installed in PCI-bus IBM PC, which does not have GPIB interface. Which way would be easier for developing my own instrument driver: a new GPIB controller + interface or 2915 Kinetic Sys. PCI-bus in-slot interface? Thanks

[Ryan_M]

alled in PCI-bus IBM PC, which does not have GPIB interface. Which way would be easier for developing my own instrument driver: a new GPIB controller + interface or 2915 Kinetic Sys. PCI-bus in-slot interface? Can the latter interface be used with LabView?If you are not using a National Instruments' GPIb interface, then in order
to interface with the GPIB controller you will need to directly access the
board's DLL using a Call Library Function. If the vendor provides a VISA
version for their driver, then LabVIEW can use this in lue of the direct
driver call. If you have a direct PCI interface, you would follow the same
procedure to interface with it. You would use a CLF to load the DLL and
make direct calls to the device. Unless the vendor of this device provides
a language interface for LabVIEW (such as VISA for GPIB), this will be the
only method for coding. I am not familiar with either device but from a
general point of view, if you do not have VISA for the GPIB board or a
Language interface for the PCI interface, th
en you are using the same
methodology to access the hardware. It would then be a performance isssue.
Does the CAMAC respond better when in a PCI form factor or when it is
externally accessed using GPIB. This would be best answered by the vendor.

Ryan Mosley
National Instruments, Applications Engineer
http://www.ni.com/exchange

[Kamran S.]

alled in PCI-bus IBM PC, which does not have GPIB interface. Which way would be easier for developing my own instrument driver: a new GPIB controller + interface or 2915 Kinetic Sys. PCI-bus in-slot interface? Can the latter interface be used with LabView?Victor,

I couldn't find an Instrument Driver for the 3932 crate controler. There is a driver for the 3988: http://zone.ni.com/idnet97.nsf/9b2b33e1993d877786256436006ec498/045f8392cc4d1b01862568ab005fbb49?OpenDocument

If you look at the driver it isn't too complex. Well ... actaully there are certain differences when using the 3988 GPIB controller that the driver takes care of that relate to correctly passing commands (FAN).

If the 3922 controller is similar then maybe you can use the 3988 driver and modify it to meet your needs. I'm not familar with the 2915 Kinetic system so I'm not sure what would be easier.

If you have a GPIB board, then you could try using the 3988 driver with your 3922 controller and see if you can modify the driver to get things to work.

I
've only used the 3988 and that was quite three years ago but it might be worth a try.

Best of luck,
Kamran - NI