I'm working on a project that uses Labview to control two Cole-Parmer MFCs that are connected to one serial connection to a PC. The Labview application I'm working on uses the Alicat Scientific's device drivers to control the flow of air through the MFCs. I am able to control the flow of the MFCs using the drivers, but I have one problem, and it is that when I use the write Alicat Write VI to set a certain flow value that is bigger than 0 there is a 1-0.5s delay untill the new value is set into the MFC.
I've looked at the Alicat Write VI while it was being called, and I noticed that the delay starts when the program reaches that Set Point VI, where the value is written through the VISA.
In general, the whole Alicat Write VI takes about 3 seconds to complete it's task, when it should, in my opinion, be no more than a few ms. I believe that the 1-0.5s delay and the overall 3s to comeplete the task are caused by read from VISA tasks, which are in every VI in the Alicat Write VI, and ther are the Put Reg VIs that read and write to VISA for the purpose of giving a textual output to be used, but in my application, there is no need for this information.
I would like to mess around with the Alicat drivers, but I can't do that without understanding how it works. I've searched for manuals or guides regarding the programming instructions to the MFCs, but the best I've found was in the MFC operating manual, where there was some reference to writing to registers 21 and 22 (which do not appear in the Alicat Write VI; instead, there is the 20, 18 and 24 registers, which I don't know what they are for).
I do understand how the Hyperterminal is used to give instructions to the MFC and extracting information from it.
I would appreciate if someone could point me to an MFC programming/instructions guide, or an explanation of how the Alicat drivers work, as I would gain more info from there.
I don't have the program in this computer, but tommorow I will post the files I'm using.
Thanks in advance,
