Running two Circulating Water baths at the same time

[jakers]

Hello,

Here is what I want to do…

I have two Circulating Baths (can go hot and cold).  One bath I want to run from a temperature of 30 C to 50 C hold, then back down to 30 C.  The other I want to do the opposite. 50 C to 30 C hold, then back up to 50 C.  I have got this all working in labview. 

However I have saved one as Hot water bath 1 and Hot water bath 2.

2 Different VI’s. 

What I want to do NOW…is have both the two programs running at the same time….

I was told that something called “reentry” could help me with this?  Is this true? How would I complete what I want to do?

Thanks,

Jack

[johnsold]

Jack,

Reentrancy might help.  Look at the LabVIEW help to get more information. You may also be able to use the two VIs with some modifications as subVIs to the main program.

A key issue is how you communicate with the baths. RS-232? GPIB? Ethernet? Other?  This communication may be a bottleneck or not.

Lynn

[jakers]

I am using RS-232 Communication. Whenever I look for the reentrancy in labivew I am not given very valuable information...

[crossrulz]

I'm remembering from other posts that you are using serial ports.  Obviously, you have to be using two different serial ports.  I'm not sure if the VISA functions will block between the different ports or not.  Even if they do, it shouldn't be enough for you to notice.

If you have two VIs already written, put both of them into another VI and run.

[crossrulz]

I should ask if these two main VIs are using the same subVIs.  If so, then you do need to set those subVIs to be reentrant.  You can set the reentrancy in the VI properties dialog, Execution tab.  Check the "Reentrant Execution" box.  You probably just want to keep the preallocate clones just for simplicity's sake.

[jakers]

crossrulz thank you for your responses!

Quick questions...

1. I have both of the VI's saved in a my documents folder...in order to complete the task at hand would I need to "Create a project" and then dump the VI's into the project?

I guess sometimes I get a bit confused on the hierachy part of labview...

Thank you so much!

Jack

[jakers]

Really easy solution.....Just Run both of the VI's at once... However I will look into the Reentry stuff for later!  Thank You for the help!

Jack

[crossrulz]

You don't have to use a project.  I would recommend using a project to help organize your code.

All you have to do is make another VI and have this new VI call your two other VIs.