Racal 3151

[livemike]

I have a Racal 3151, Wavetek 1361 & 1320.  When I use National Instruments Measurement & Automation I can see my Agilent E1406A interface but none of the XVI cards installed in my mainframe (list previously).  Am I missing something? Souldn't I at least see the VXI card address pop up when I  scan for instruments?

[kevins33]

Hi,

Can you please provide more information regarding your hardware and software setup? What NI hardware/software are you using? What VXI chassis are you using? What software versions are you using? Has this ever worked in the past? Do you have any other systems that display this same behavior? 

Thanks!

[livemike]

Kevin,

The devices that I am trying to communicate with are as follows: Racal 3151, Wavetek 1361 & 1320.  The IEEE VXI interface is an Agilent E1406A. The mainframe is a HP 75000.  We are using P/C, software and NI MAX we are using is as follows: 

Operating System(OS) Professional
OS Version 6.01.7600
OS Info
Processor Intel(R) Core(TM)2 Duo CPU T5270 @ 1.40GHz / x86 Family 6 Model 15 Stepping 13 / GenuineIntel / 1396 MHz
Number of Processors 2
Physical Memory 2.99 GB of RAM
Drive C:\ 93.8 GB of 230 GB free

National Instruments Software: Version:

CVI 15.0.0
CVI AddOns LabWindows/CVI Shared AddOns
CVI Runtime 15.0.0.408
NI-488.2 Software 2.73
LabVIEW Runtime 2015 15.0.0
Measurement & Automation Explorer 4.6.2.49152
Measurement Studio Visual Studio 2005 Support - See individual versions below.
DotNET
Common 8.7.20.131
Visa 8.9.20.108
Measurement Studio Visual Studio 2008 Support - See individual versions below.
DotNET
Common 8.7.35.131
Common (64-bit) 8.7.35.131
Visa 8.9.35.108
Visa (64-bit) 8.9.35.108
NI-USI 15.0.0.5998
NI-PAL Software 2.5.2
NI Spy 2.7.0.49152
NI-VISA 4.6
NIvisaic.exe 4.6.0.49152
NI-VISA Runtime 4.6
LabVIEW Runtime 8.2.1 8.2.1
LabVIEW Runtime 8.6.0 8.6.0

[kevins33]

Thanks for that added detail and information. 

I was able to find an internal document that describes the steps that you should take for recognizing your E1406A in MAX. 

1. Install NI-VISA. This module will work just fine with NI-VISA and does not require HP-VISA. There are issues with older versions of NI-VISA and the E1406A, so NI-VISA 3.0 or higher is recommended.
   
   
2. Place the E1406A in the VXI chassis. Connect the E1406A to your GPIB card and turn on the VXI chassis.
   
   
3. Copy the Agilent Passports and Enable them. Agilent does provide passports for this device. The file attached below is a self extracting file that contains two passport files.
   
   
   1. Run this file and place the contents of it in the Bin folder for VISA. This Bin folder is usually located at C:\VXIpnp\WinNT\bin.
   2. MAX will need to be closed and reopened for the new setting to take effect.
   3. Open and refresh MAX.
4. If you are using a new version of NI-VISA and MAX, MAX should automatically detect the GPIB-VXI interface. If you are using an older version of NI-VISA and MAX, you will need to add the GPIB-VXI interface manually:
   
   
   1. Right click on devices and interfaces and select Create New.
   2. Select GPIB-VXI Interfaces.
   3. Follow the on-screen instructions for configuring the GPIB-VXI interface
   4. Refresh MAX to automatically detect the VXI instruments.
5. You can communicate with all of the devices using a VISA session. Only communicate with the VXI instruments using the GPIB-VXI resource. Never use the GPIB resource. The proper VISA instrument descriptor is GPIB-VXI[board]::VXI logical address[::INSTR].

Can you please try these steps and let us know how this goes? I would recommend contacting Agilent as well. Thanks!

[livemike]

Kevin,

I have followed the instructions you sent and I have a resource GPIB-VXI0::0::INSTR with an exclamation point. When I try to open a VISA session I get a message that says "Unable to open session to "GPIB-VXI0::0::INSTR" Return status code: 0xBFFF0000 Status name: VI_ERROR_SYSTEM_ERROR Unknown system error (miscellaneous error). 

[kevins33]

I'm sorry to hear that you are still seeing errors. At this point, it may be best to contact Agilent support regarding using their device. I'll try to dig into this more on my end, but it may be good to speak with their support in parallel.