What is the best way to start a VI that controls a HP 4284A?

[Mechi2323]

I need to be able to control a HP 4284A LCR Meter with labview. My goal is to eventually use the VI for the LCR as a sub VI in a prgram I have already completed which controls a environmental chamber. I have looked through the HP 4284A's manual and cannot get a good grasp on any of it so it hasn't helped me as of yet. When I wrote the VI for the chamber I had a detailed list of command descriptions to work from and all of them worked when tried seperately with the device manager in the managment and automation program included with labview. I have downloaded the drivers from National Instruments but I just have no clue (by looking at the HP's manual) of how to begin the VI for my instrument.

[Mache]

Hi,

I hope you will be using VISA and have installed VISA along with labview. If Not I think this is the first step.

Secondly you need to get hold of "Programming" Manual for the instrument. This is usually seperate from the "User's" or "Operating" Manual. This will list all detailed Commands and has some example programs.

You have already downloaded the Instrument Driver, The Zip file should be Unzipped and all files placed under Labview's Instr.Lib directory as a seperate folder. Once you have these here - different VI's can be accessed from the Functions Palette->Instrument I/o or Insturment Lib. Menus.

If you look at the VI's that you have as part of this Instrument driver - they are neatly arranged by their functions, such as "Configuration" "Action/Status" "Data" and "Utility"

There are two other groups which you should look at and understand their use "Getting Started" and "Application Examples". Especially one of the VI's functionality is detailed below and is a good way to get the handle on Instrument.

"HP428XA Getting Started.vi"
This VI is an example of how to use the HP428XA subVIs programmatically. This VI first initializes the instrument, configures a measurement, sets triggering, takes measurements, then closes the instrument.

This function demonstrate one type of impedance measurement that can be made with the HP428XA and it accessories. In this example a 220 pF ceramic capacitor will be measured. For more details see to the operation manual in Chapter 3. Or You can Look at the VI Information under VI Properties.

Lastly the Instrument driver has two VI's which are your Start and Stop VI's

The "HP428XA Initialize VI" and "HP428XA Close VI"
Whenevr you want to Communicate with the Instrument you will use the Initilialize VI and wire the VISA and Error Out terminals to Subsequent "Config" "Action" etc Vis. The Last Vi in this Chain is the Close Vi.

I hope this answers your queations and Puts you on the right Path.

Good Luck!! I am Attcahing a Picture of all the Sunvis in the Instrument Driver.

Mache

[kmo]

Hello there,

I am very new to labview and I am also trying to make a visa to control HP 4284A. After reading the above posts, I was wondering if u got the measurement manual for LCR meter and how did u go about it.

any help will be really appreciated.

Thanks a lot.

key.

[TongY]

Go to Agilent's product page, you should be able to find all the manuals there.

http://www.home.agilent.com/cgi-bin/pub/agilent/Product/cp_Product.jsp?NAV_ID=-536890817.536880951.00&LANGUAGE_CODE=eng&CONTENT_KEY=1000000874%3aepsg%3apro&ID=1000000874%3aepsg%3apro&COUNTRY_CODE=US

[Mutha]

Hi

Am trying to work with the similar LCR meter and I have installed the drivers for the HP 4284A.And am trying to plot a graph of Cp, D for both time and frequency range.

The HP428XA is not executed and it returns an error VISA Read in HP428XA Initialize.vi->HP428XA Getting Started.vi .

I have done various error isolating methods like

• Incrementing the number of bytes from 2.
• Increased the timeout period.
• And adding a delay between read and write.

The HP 4284A LCR meter is connected in serial with the Lakeshore 331 Temperature Controller using a Prologix GPIB-USB controller.

Attached are the images of the execution.

Please suggest on how to proceed further. Any help will be appreciated.

Thank you

~M~

[Dennis_Knutson]

Your description of the connection is confusing to me. I don't understand "connected in serial with the Lakeshore 331 Temperature Controller using a Prologix GPIB-USB controller". What does the Lakeshore have to with anything?

In any case, since the Prologix is not a real GPIB controller like the NI (or Agilent) models, you will have to modify the driver per the instructions from Prologix.

[Mutha]

Hi Dennis.

Thank you for your response.

The 2 devices LCR meter and the Temperature controller are connected to computer using a Prologix GPIB USB device.I looked through the Prologix manual and dint understand most of it. 

Am beginner in Labview and I need help about how I could modify the VI to plot graphs. 

Thanks

M

[Dennis_Knutson]

Well, you bought a hobbyist GPIB controller that requires quite a bit of modification to work with a single instrument and much more for mulltiple. instruments. I wish I had the time (or the purchase order) to help. Per the manual and example code, it seems to me that at the very least, you will have to add a terminator (CR or LF) to the end of every command and add the +addr command in order to address a specific instrument.

For learning LabVIEW, check out the free tutorials.

p.s. If you are a student, I can see the reasong behind saving some money. If you are working for a company that trys to save such a small sum, let the boss know that the money saved (and more) is going to be spent on the conversion of existing code.

[Mutha]

  Sure am gona get started on the tutorials.And yes am a student and working in my lab to set up a remote instrument monitoring.

  Thank you for your prompt respone.

  Regards

  Mutha