Modify Ni drivers to control Chroma 6430 AC power supply via RS232

[NRLengineer]

I have a Chroma 6430 power supply connected to Labview 8.5.  I have downloaded the NI certified drivers, but they are for GPIB only.  Basically, I need help modifying (if it is possible) the VIs supplied with the driver download so that I can control through a RS232 connection.  I can use the "Basic Serial Write and Read.vi" to communicate with the instrument, but I am wanting more functionality and am hoping that I will not have to start from scratch. 

Thanks.

James

[Dennis_Knutson]

The driver uses VISA so the modification is simple. You have the example 34401 driver installed. Look at the initialuze function for that and modify the 6430 to something similar.

[NRLengineer]

Thanks for the tip.  I have pulled up the 34401 Initialize VI and will try to modify the 6430 initialize VI based on that.  I will let you know how it goes.

James

[NRLengineer]

Dennis,

I was getting errors when trying to modify the 6430 VIs to resemble the 34401 (I can't recall the errors right now).  I think that communication to my device requires much less than the 34401 (as far as initializing).  I ended up modifying the "Advanced Serial Write and Read" VI so that I had 6430 specific commands being sent and used the 34401 VIs as a reference when trying to manipulate the data I received from the 6430. 

Thanks for your help.

James