Instrument Control (GPIB, Serial, VISA, IVI)
Quantum Composers 9818 Pulse Generator. (USB, COM, Port, Communication, SCPI, Mapped, Mapping, 488.2, RS232)
I wanted to chronologue my attempts to work with Quantum Composers Model 9818 Pulse Generator (DDG). The purpose is to aide anyone else with a similar problem, to get feedback on my problems & solutions, and to have a place where I can track what I do.
Device Specific Information:
=========================
BootROM: V01.02
Firmware: V01.32
Channels A-F are optical outputs
Channels G-H are coaxial outputs
EXT/GATE is an optical input
First off, I want to say that I don't think NI has very good help for newbies. The tutorials on how to make VI's seem great at first, but how do I publish them? How do I actually connect, test, verify, and communicate with a device from start to finish? I was told to just download the drivers. I did that and nothing happened. No one ever said I had to install VISA, MAX and other pieces of software. This seems like a no-brainer to users, but to someone unfamiliar with something to the point that they don't even know that MAX, VISA and the others exist, it's pretty annoying to find out that everyone else is expecting this to all be a given. Not to mention, I only found out that these existed through other tutorials telling me to use VISA here or MAX there. Once I knew they existed I didn't know WHERE they existed. On a whim I decided to look for the drivers on the "Driver Resource CD" (I had already downloaded and installed them from the website and my MFR). Once there I didn't see ANYTHING talking about MAX, VISA, etc. So I simply clicked the only install option I saw... and only THEN did options for VISA, MAX and a whole slew of other things I had never even heard of showed up. This is ridiculous. I'm sorry NI, I love your product (sort of, and so far) but your help system(s) STINK! New users don't know what does what (heck, I STILL don't know, I'm still just trying to tread water here!), and when we DO find out what does what it takes forever to figure out WHERE it is, and then it's another hurdle to figure out HOW to use it!
SO.... I am going to lay a few things down for those of us out there working in small companies where you are the only guy using the cheapest version of LabVIEW your company would allow you to buy and now can't afford to send you to the classes.
Insert the main LabVIEW disc and install it hwo you want it.
Insert the "Device Driver Reference CD, Disc 1" and click "Install Device Drivers" regardless of the fact that you aren't in fact installing device drivers... just all the other software and APIs for the drivers.
Make sure you carefully parse your way through the options to get all the necessary components installed. Important to you are, NI Spy, VISA, MAX (Measurement and Automation Control), Instrument Control, NI-DAQ, NI-Serial, NI-488.2, and others. You probably don't even know what you need, but don't just select to install everything! You'll ened up with a large number of errors unless you are licensed for the full package.
AFTER doing all that go ahead and install your device drivers. Go into Measurement & Automation to assign names to the devices for VISA to reference them later.
Now, I have gotten this far myself, but I keep having this problem:
I can get into Measurement & Automation and talk to and receive data from my device. I can even use a simple pre-built .vi to do the same; however, I can not use the more important .vi's because I keep getting this error:
Device Specific Information:
=========================
BootROM: V01.02
Firmware: V01.32
Channels A-F are optical outputs
Channels G-H are coaxial outputs
EXT/GATE is an optical input
First off, I want to say that I don't think NI has very good help for newbies. The tutorials on how to make VI's seem great at first, but how do I publish them? How do I actually connect, test, verify, and communicate with a device from start to finish? I was told to just download the drivers. I did that and nothing happened. No one ever said I had to install VISA, MAX and other pieces of software. This seems like a no-brainer to users, but to someone unfamiliar with something to the point that they don't even know that MAX, VISA and the others exist, it's pretty annoying to find out that everyone else is expecting this to all be a given. Not to mention, I only found out that these existed through other tutorials telling me to use VISA here or MAX there. Once I knew they existed I didn't know WHERE they existed. On a whim I decided to look for the drivers on the "Driver Resource CD" (I had already downloaded and installed them from the website and my MFR). Once there I didn't see ANYTHING talking about MAX, VISA, etc. So I simply clicked the only install option I saw... and only THEN did options for VISA, MAX and a whole slew of other things I had never even heard of showed up. This is ridiculous. I'm sorry NI, I love your product (sort of, and so far) but your help system(s) STINK! New users don't know what does what (heck, I STILL don't know, I'm still just trying to tread water here!), and when we DO find out what does what it takes forever to figure out WHERE it is, and then it's another hurdle to figure out HOW to use it!
SO.... I am going to lay a few things down for those of us out there working in small companies where you are the only guy using the cheapest version of LabVIEW your company would allow you to buy and now can't afford to send you to the classes.
Insert the main LabVIEW disc and install it hwo you want it.
Insert the "Device Driver Reference CD, Disc 1" and click "Install Device Drivers" regardless of the fact that you aren't in fact installing device drivers... just all the other software and APIs for the drivers.
Make sure you carefully parse your way through the options to get all the necessary components installed. Important to you are, NI Spy, VISA, MAX (Measurement and Automation Control), Instrument Control, NI-DAQ, NI-Serial, NI-488.2, and others. You probably don't even know what you need, but don't just select to install everything! You'll ened up with a large number of errors unless you are licensed for the full package.
AFTER doing all that go ahead and install your device drivers. Go into Measurement & Automation to assign names to the devices for VISA to reference them later.
Now, I have gotten this far myself, but I keep having this problem:
I can get into Measurement & Automation and talk to and receive data from my device. I can even use a simple pre-built .vi to do the same; however, I can not use the more important .vi's because I keep getting this error:
Thanks, I actually already did something similar, I just disabled the device query altogether. Man, these drivers are a serious web of one thing going to the next... it's REALLY hard to tell what is going on! I did get another error, but I can't tell what it is:
From what I hear someone at NI actually developed the code... maybe it was you since you had such a thorough and quick answer to the last question. Maybe I should state my goal, because I'm beginning to think something from scratch would be better in my case.
I am using this DDG to control the timing of a series of 7 events in a thruster sequence. My PM would like something that can allow him to tweak interdependencies in timing, real-time. To give a non-proprietary, generic explanation, let's call each event as they are listed on the generator (A-H, actually, just to G since I only need seven unique events). A few of the events are performed twice every cycle, where as some are performed only once. (The full cycle can be broken down into two symmetric cycles where some events are actually the exact same event whereas other events just have a "sister"). Event A and B start together at the beginning, event C starts 10ms later, D 100us after that, etc etc... One of the prolems is that some events actually depend on FUTURE events. So say for example, I move the time at which event E occurs, that means C might need to start earlier.
I've got all the math for the timing worked out generically in excel and I can even get it to display a predicted timing diagram for me and my dependents update if I change my independent variables. What I THINK I should do in this case is implement all this math and interdependencies in a LabVIEW .vi, then add just what VISA functionality I need to initialize the device, change parameters as needed, real time, and properly save and "shutdown" the device when finished. My PM wants to be able to either type in numerical values, or perhaps move sliders to alter timing, then press a "GO" button to upload the new constraints.
If you are the one that wrote this puppy, or if the one that did is watching, what say ye? Should I try to incorporate the .vi's you already made, or should I work from scratch?
-Jon
From what I hear someone at NI actually developed the code... maybe it was you since you had such a thorough and quick answer to the last question. Maybe I should state my goal, because I'm beginning to think something from scratch would be better in my case.
I am using this DDG to control the timing of a series of 7 events in a thruster sequence. My PM would like something that can allow him to tweak interdependencies in timing, real-time. To give a non-proprietary, generic explanation, let's call each event as they are listed on the generator (A-H, actually, just to G since I only need seven unique events). A few of the events are performed twice every cycle, where as some are performed only once. (The full cycle can be broken down into two symmetric cycles where some events are actually the exact same event whereas other events just have a "sister"). Event A and B start together at the beginning, event C starts 10ms later, D 100us after that, etc etc... One of the prolems is that some events actually depend on FUTURE events. So say for example, I move the time at which event E occurs, that means C might need to start earlier.
I've got all the math for the timing worked out generically in excel and I can even get it to display a predicted timing diagram for me and my dependents update if I change my independent variables. What I THINK I should do in this case is implement all this math and interdependencies in a LabVIEW .vi, then add just what VISA functionality I need to initialize the device, change parameters as needed, real time, and properly save and "shutdown" the device when finished. My PM wants to be able to either type in numerical values, or perhaps move sliders to alter timing, then press a "GO" button to upload the new constraints.
If you are the one that wrote this puppy, or if the one that did is watching, what say ye? Should I try to incorporate the .vi's you already made, or should I work from scratch?
-Jon
