keithley 6517a serial interface help

[DevinChen]

Hi,

I finally got a chance to work on the picoammeter again (Keithley 6485), but I ran into some problem with reading.  Can someone take a quick look at the simple code I used.  The settings on the device should match the code's: 9600b, stop bit 1, flow control=none, data bit=8 and termination =CR.  The connection was fine because the device went into REM mode the moment I sent the command READ?, but I didn't receive any reading and no byte was evidenced at port.  Please help.

Thanks,

Sorry, fogot to attach the code.

Message Edited by DevinChen on 11-19-2009 05:31 PM

[Dennis_Knutson]

Well, you are repeating the same mistake as the op about the termination character. You are not sending a CR after the READ? command. Get rid of the extra '\'.

[DevinChen]

Hi Dennis,

Thanks for you reply and sorry I am responding so late as I've been busy with other assignments.  I am wondering if you have any other suggestions as I have already tried the command with only "READ?\r".  It didn't work.  Since the instrument does go into REM mode, the connection should be fine.  So, the problem is the command, right?  According to the manual, the READ? command should get me a fresh reading.  Please let me know what else I can try.

Thanks alot,

[Dennis_Knutson]

Did you do some initial testing with a program such as Hyperterminal? What happens there?

[DevinChen]

No, I didn't. How does that work?

Thanks,

[Dennis_Knutson]

It's a windows program. Start>Programs>Accessories>Communication

[SmartMano]

Dear Friends,

I'm using K6517B electrometer. In order to measure voltage source (e.g -10V to +10V) and current measurement of solar cell, i need an labview program. I'm using USB 488 GPIB interface cable. I have to plot graph between voltage source and current measurement. Please anyone give solution for this.

---

@ADDS wrote:

Hi,

I am using an instrument, Keithley 6517A electrometer, to control it using Labview and I am very new to this software (1 week). All i have is an RS232 cable. I dowloaded the driver, but it is for IEEE 488.2 (GPIB) cable, which doesn;t work with RS232. I did some research, and found out that u can use SCIP language to control the instrument using RS232.

Can someone please help me write a simple program that uses RS232 cable to control the instrument?

The program that I want to implement is basically to measure voltage change across the two leads, while incrementing the power source voltage built-in the instrument by around 0.1V.

For ex, The power source voltage will increase by 0.1V, wait around 3 seconds to stabalize the voltage reading, read and save the voltage reading to a file, repeat after incrementing 0.1 again. 

Information That might help

Instrument: Keithley 6517A

Cable interface: RS-232

Software used: Labview 8.5

Computer info: Vista X64 bit

Any help would be appreciated.

Thank you very much

---

[Dennis_Knutson]

duplicate post and off topic since you are not using serial.