Labview and Fast Acquisition with Tektronix 7000 series (DPO 7354)

[crhunt]

I'm trying to set up a Labview program (vers. 8.5) to read out a Tektronix 7354 oscilloscope. I downloaded the project-style 7000 Series driver and software and am successfully communicating with the scope**. So far so good.

The problem is, I need to aquire data in the fast acquisition mode (FastAcq). None of the example vi's seem to use this mode, nor seem to acknowledge its existance. For example, according to the block diagram in the Configure Data Width.vi, the only acquisition modes you can choose from are: SAM, PEAK, HIR, AVE, ENV. I'm pretty sure I know what these are, and none of them correspond to fast acquisition.

Any advice or examples appreciated. I'm a newb at Labview--the only successes under my belt so far are controlling and reading out a Keithley sourcemeter and a LakeShore temperature controller. So please phrase your suggestions as though I were a five year old. Thank you.

**In case anyone stumbles into the same issue: The scope failed to communicate when the GPIB address was set to the single digits. No idea why, nor if this is a general issue or I'm a unique snowflake. Just thought I'd put it out there.

[Dennis_Knutson]

Do you know the SCPI command for this mode? I don't have the manual and I think Tek requires registration to download it. In any case, if you find it in the manual, open the VI Tree function and do a text search for all VIs in application instance. If it does not exist, then you will have to modify the driver.

[crhunt]

Thanks for the speedy reply, Dennis!

I registered with Tek and downloaded the manual. Unfortunately, in all its 200+ page glory, scpi commands are never mentioned. Nor anything to do with remote control. If it helps, on the Tektronix forums, there is a post about developing a VBA in Excel for a DPO 7104. S/he uses the command: SCPIcmd = "FASTAcq:#STATE OFF" (The '#' is a space, just trying to avoid smilies). My vi digging has uncovered no such command in the any of the files I have, though I am browsing by hand and may have overlooked something. What do you mean by doing a search for vi's "in application instance"? (Reeeally a newb here.)

I've never had to script scpi commands before, via Labview or otherwise. If you can point me to a simple example or tutorial, I'd appreciate it.

Also, if anyone has experience with setting up fast acquisition remotely and has some advice or examples to share, I'd love to see them.

Edited to add: Glory be, there's a programmer's manual. I found it here: http://ebookbrowse.com/gdoc.php?id=318455051&url=a177d6cdd9072c83b16ce4061fa58196 

[Stephan_D]

Hi,

could you post the exact download link for the instrument VIs? I want to download the driver an take a look into it. But for this, i must catch exact the same driver like you.

Stephan

[crhunt]

Hi Stephan,

Thanks for taking a look. You can find the drivers here: http://sine.ni.com/apps/utf8/niid_web_display.download_page?p_id_guid=6566BC3787B433D2E0440003BA7CCD...

I downloaded the Labview 8.2 version.

[Stephan_D]

Thanks for the download link. I downloaded the VIs from the source and the instrument driver looks very pretty for my. I hope that you only have to add 2 or 3 VIs Into your code.

The problem is, that I never used this instrument driver or this Tektronix device. Maybe I could tell you the necessary commandos/VIs and the place, where you should add this stuff. Could you provide me the part of your programm, which you use to configurate and aquire the Tektronix 7354?

Stephan