agilent 34903 Actuator/Relay card not working in remote mode

[rakuz]

I have a simple SPDT relay on the 34903A card, hooked into a 34972A DAQ Unit.

The COM is a 5V supply from an external source,and I have the NO pin hooked up to an input externally as well.

When testing this relay on the front, it works fine.

However, I am unable to actuate it remotely. I send the following cmd:

"ROUT:CLOS (@301)"

I dont get any errors back and I get a return message from the cmd. However, the relay doesnt actually switch.

As soon as I make a connection to the 34972A, the front panel no longer gives me control for open/closing the channel also.

If I use the same command on an unused channel(@302), it works even remotely.

What is going on here?

[jdel12]

Hi rakuz, 

Are you using any Hardware or Software from National Instruments? If not, I think the best place to post your questions would be the respective company's forum or support page.

If you do use something from NI, list it and explain how are you using it and what is the relation to the issue you have.

[cstorey]

If it works for channel 2 it should work for channel 1.  Perhaps then ch1 is not configured the same way?  (4-wire/2-wire?)

There's a driver for that DAQ and switch - http://sine.ni.com/apps/utf8/niid_web_display.download_page?p_id_guid=014F4CD7EF78136AE0440003BA7CCD...

Look at their examples to see how they communicate with the unit.  You might be unitentionally setting ch1 to a funny state when going to remote mode.

>> As soon as I make a connection to the 34972A, the front panel no longer gives me control for open/closing the channel also.

This is expected behaviour, once you initiate communications you put the unit in remote mode and lock-out the front panel.  You can send a VISA GPIB Control REN vi (sets remote or local) to set the instrument back to local state and have access to front panel if using GPIB.  Otherwise the instrument itself could have a "Local" SCPI command.

[Minions]

Do you have monitoring on and that channel selected in the front panel of the instrument?  Your command would work briefly, then it will default to the front panel settings which would then turn it back on.

Using the ROUTe command should really only be used during debug.  Use the MEASure command with Monitoring OFF.  If monitoring is OFF, then the channel selected on the front panel will not make a difference until the MEAS command is sent.