Trubble initiating USB 2000 Ocean optics spectrometer

[Monica_Agarwal]

this advice is a life saver....... i wasted one whole day figuring out the problem. Apparaently uninstalling Spectra suite and Ocean Optics software helped. once uninstalled USB4000 showed up in devices and interfaces in NI measurement and automation program and I was able to run my programs there after. Thanx a ton for the advice.

[James_G1]

You do not actually have to uninstall those programs.  You can, at any time, switch which driver is being used using the device manager, select update driver, then chose to do it yourself on any screen giving you a choice, you will get to a screen which shows the two allowable drivers, select which one you want to use at that time.  I switch back and forth all the time.

The reason why this is like this is basically because LabVIEW uses a totally different USB driver than Ocean Optics did.  Ocean Optics uses the USB driver created by the makes of the USB chip in the device.  I believe LabVIEW has a homemade USB driver, except in later LabVIEW versions where they started to use WinUSB.  Ocean Optics also switched to WinUSB when they created their 64 bit support options but could not switch for their legacy 32 bit programs for reasons of backward compatibility.  As stated above Ocean Optics had these programs in place long before the LabVIEW drivers existed and the Ocean Optics documentation has not been updated to account for a third party's development.  Maybe it should since LabVIEW is so huge.

James Gass

OOI engineer

LabVIEW user

[Monica_Agarwal]

HI James,

Thanx a lot for the reply. Your suggestion will sure help me if I need to use Spectra suite on same computer. I will definitely make use of ur advice.

On a different Issue, Is there a way I can just get intensity spectra wrt time axes instead of whole spectrum at all wavelengths. I need spectral intensity at one particular wavelength only. I have this feature in spectrasuite software. I was hoping if there is a program which does similar thing in labview displaying spectral intensity wrt time.

Thanx

[James_G1]

You will have to make your own vi for that.  It should be somewhat  simple.  Use an index array to pluck out the pixel of interest then feed it to a waveform chart.  This should give you "strip chart" like behavior.

The great thing about LabVIEW is you can get fancier than that if you have the time/skill.  You can even do time series of the whole spectrum and plot it in a 3d graph.  Very cool looking to see in real time.  Cross sections, contours plots...no end to how you can manipulate the data.

[Monica_Agarwal]

Thanx James Once again for prompt reply. I will make a vi of my own.

[Diegin]

Hi, At present I have decided to use the NI-VISA driver for Ocean Optics spectrometers. However I have a problem. When I try to install the driver by means of Device Manager occurs an error. Appears a message which says that INF is not valid. I'm working with Windows 7 Ultimate and LabVIEW 2010 and NI-VISA 5 and HR400. On the other hand, I see that you mention problems with agilent drivers. Also, I have working with multimeters Agilent 34405A and 344410A. Is there any conflict with this devices?.

[Albert.Geven]

Do you have the ocean optics spectrasuite software installed? Read the html carefully about switching from OO drivers to visa drivers. 

[James_G1]

Did you install the proper /inf for Vista/Win 7.  If you take a second look at the read me, you will see the section about which inf to use for which OS.  Is this the problem?

[Diegin]

Thank so much, I have solved the problem. So, I have other problem. For an specific application, it is necessary to use both Spectrometer and Agilent Multimeter AG34410 or AG34405. Is it posible working with both devices?

Thanks so much

[AllanNish]

Hello

I am wondering if anyone can give me a hint as to how I can go about solving this problem. I am using Labview 2011 in 64 bit mode, Win 7. I was working on some programming in Labview, using the 'aquire continuous waveform.vi" from LabView, and the VISA resource name was coming up fine with the Ocean Optics' USB4000 which I'm using.

Because I like Ocean Optics' "Spectra Suite", I installed it and that worked fine. However, when I went back to the Labview program, VISA no longer recognized the USB4000. Ocean Optics USB4000 appears in the device list, and the driver is WinUSB. I am wondering if I have to change this to driver that the labview program uses? If so, where is the drivere located?

Any help or suggestions would be greatly appreciated!

Allan