controlling Xantrex

[mysimba]

Hello every body,

I'm a student in a engineering school.

I use Labview 6i (it's funny but I must work with it) and I want to control a Xantrex with a serial cable RS232.

My question is: is there any ready programs or subVI's to control the Xantrex and increase the voltage supplied ?

Or can you give me an idea how to do?

I have the driver for Xantrex but I work for the first time with serial port.

Can any one help me please.

Thanks

[Dennis_Knutson]

If you have the driver, what problems are you having using it? There's several drivers available and you didn't mention the model. Does the driver come with an application example?

[mysimba]

T answer your questions :

The model I'm using is XANTREX XT 30-2

Yes there is an application with the driver, but I dont know how to use the RS232

To increase the voltage there is no application to do.

Can you please help.

Regards 

[Dennis_Knutson]

If it's the driver here, then when you use the Initialize function and have a serial port instrument descriptor, then it will automatically configure the serial port. I have 7.1 and the driver I downloaded has the 'Old' VISA Open in it. I would recomend that you replace this with the VISA Open on the palette and redo like the attachment. You first have to right click on the VISA Session terminal and select 'Show Control'. Then go to the front panel, and since the string control has been deleted, wire the VISA Session control to the upper leftmost connector of the connector pane. With a VISA Resource Name control, you can just click on the littel arrow on the right side of the control to select your com port. There is a function in the above driver called XanXT Config Voltage. Every time you want to increase the voltage, you just have to call this. If you want to increase the voltrage in a series of steps, a for loop would work if you wired in an array of values.

Message Edited by Dennis Knutson on 10-28-2006 11:53 AM

[mysimba]

Thank you very much Dennis for your help and your details.
I will try this on monday.
Does this Vi work on Labview 6i ?

Thanks

[Dennis_Knutson]

Sorry, I missed the fact that you are using 6.0. The driver I pointed you to is available for download only as 7.0. It's possible to convert it to 6.0 if someone has LabVIEW 7.0 and 6.1. I can't do it until Monday.

[mysimba]

Thank you for your help,

I don't have Labview 6.1 and 7.0 , can you please convert it to me ?

Thanks for your help.

[mysimba]

I changed the old open visa, but it still not working

How should I do? I can't get forward...

Please help me,

In attached there is the Vi where I'm trying to set a voltage.

It seems that initialize.vi is made only for GPIB.

[Dennis_Knutson]

First of all, when you only attach a VI, that only attaches that VI. It doesn't attach any subVIs. Each VI is a separate file as you should have noticed and you would need to attach each one separately. A better way is to use your File>Save With Options and select Development Distribution. This will  create an llb with the main VI and all subVIs.

It does seem though that you were able to find a 6.0 version of the driver. I've attached one that I created for you anyway. I did the initialize VI correctly. As I mentioned, you needed to replace the string control on the connector pane with the VISA session control. You did not do that. In your main VI, use the initialize that I created and wire a constant or front panel VISA Resource Name to the initialize function. There is a little arrow on the right side of this control. Click it and you will get a list of all VISA Resources on your pc. Select the one (i.e. Com 1), that is connected to your instrument.

[mysimba]

Thank you Dennis for your help,

I did the same and initialize the Xantrex like you told to me.

Now I have another problem.

When I start the VI I created where I want to set a voltage I don't have the voltage on my Xantrex.

It seems that there is a problem but I don't know exactly where.

Please see attached file.

Thanks