Instrument Firmware Requirements

[MattBradley]

Hello all,

I am developing a new instrument and I want it to be USBTMC compliant.  The instrument firmware will run on a Raspberry Pi 3b.  In terms of the physical interface, I would like to be able to support USB as well ethernet, but I'm planning on starting with USB.  Any suggestions or links on how to make the Raspberry Pi into an instrument?  Thanks.

[BdogTheWatchdog]

Hey Matt,

Are you trying to recognize the RPi as a USBTMC instrument, or are you trying to use the RPi to connect to a separate USBTMC instrument?

If it's the latter, we can run the Python USBTMC driver on the RPi.

If it's the former, would you mind elaborating on your requirements and what you're hoping to achieve? 

1. What is this project being used for?

2. What instrument firmware is run on the RPi? If the firmware is already USBTMC compliant, we should just be able to communicate with it with the proper drivers. In this case, the device manufacturer adds the USBTMC support.

3. Does it have to be USBTMC compliant? 

4. Would we be able to communicate with the RPi through its TX and RX pins instead (using a USB-RS232 or USB-TTL cable)?

Thanks for your time Matt.

Best,

BrandonN

Applications Engineer

[MattBradley]

I am trying to recognize the RPi as a USBTMC instrument.

1. I am working with a group to develop a commercial instrument.  I would like to be able to send SCPI commands to it.

2. Nothing on it yet.  Just started.  But I will write a SCPI parser and control the hardware in the instrument on the RPi.

3. Yes.  

4. No... USB and later ethernet will be the only interfaces due to other requirements.

Thank you so much for your time.

[AAnche]

Hi Matt, 

Did you manage to implement the instrument with RPI? 

I have found the pyVISA/pyVISA-py, pyUSB and linux-gpib can be easily implemented on RPI. So just wanted to check if you have any pointers on this?

Thanks,

Arvind

[MattBradley]

Never got it to work, switched to STMicro.

BTW, I wasn't trying to get the RPi to control an instrument, I was trying to get the RPi to *be* the instrument.

[MattBradley]

Never got it to work, switched to STMicro.

BTW, I wasn't trying to get the RPi to control an instrument, I was trying to get the RPi to *be* the instrument.