Pfeiffer Omnicontrol 400 - communication

[Alex0404]

Hello,

I am trying to communicate to Pfeiffer Onmicontrol 400 unit with integrated power supply pack intended for control the electronic drive units of Pfeiffer Vacuum vacuum pumps. We aim at remote communication with the device. However, a response from the device comes in the form of so called Telegram frames (see an example in the picture attached). The question is whether Labview can translate the response from Telegram frames to ASCII or text or to any other form that can be recognized by NI Max? Or there is any open source software that could deal with it?

Thank you in advance, hope to find a solution.

[santo_13]

It seem to use a non-standard command packets to communicate (AFAIK), but someone has created a Python library - https://github.com/electronsandstuff/py-pfeiffer-vacuum-protocol 

You may be able to use that python functions in LabVIEW to keep it simple or recreate the Python code in native LabVIEW.

[rolfk]

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@santo_13 wrote:

You may be able to use that python functions in LabVIEW to keep it simple or recreate the Python code in native LabVIEW.

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I personally had several cases where the manufacturer was pointing a colleague to their Python library and proudly declare that since LabVIEW can import Python scripts all was well and they saw no reason for further action.

Except of course that that module from the manufacturer requires certain other modules to work. And these modules all need to be installed, in the right location, bitness and Python env. And then you need to quite often create a Python wrapper to turn the object interface into a list of functions. And get LabVIEW to find the according Python instance and be able to communicate with it. And ... well, you get the idea!

When asked to help them to sort out the mess, I took a look at the Python code and told them to give me two or three days. And rewrote the whole thing in LabVIEW. It's actually helpful to have the Python code as reference (when you can read Python of course). A perfect supplement to the instruments programming manual that often helps to clarify inconsistencies and omissions in the manual that are almost always present.

The final result: A LabVIEW library that requires no additional software installations, works natively and at least as performant but usually much more performant. No 32-bit/64-bit compatibility hassles (unless the driver somehow uses binary shared libraries). It costs a little time, but anyone going to have to reinstall your program later on on a different machine will be very grateful for it! 😁