labview control for equipment in a lab.

[Brian Bahn]

Hello,

I was wondering whether or not the following devices have supporting labVIEW drivers. I searched on your site, as well as on the internet and could not find any specific results. All of the following will be used through GPIB if possible, except for the last, which will be controlled either from RS-232 or USB connection.

Tektronix TDS540B

Tektronix 11801B

Tektronix PS2521G

Anritsu MP1763C

I also found a driver that supports Tektronix TDS6124C, but so far all I can tell is that it allows for "control" of the scope. I was wondering what range of control I would be given, be it basic, or everything that I could otherwise do on the actual scope.

Thank you for taking the time to assist me.

[Dennis_Knutson]

NI has a driver for the TDS 540, the 11800, the PS2521G, and the MP1763. How do you search NI's site. The main page is the Instrument Driver Network. Notice the 'Search' box and read the links regarding what a driver is and how to use one. You also have the ability to search for a driver right from LabVIEW. That's the Tools>Instrumentation>Find Instrument Drivers menu option.

The amount of control you have will depend on how the vendor has implemented it's command set. You can generally do everything via remote control that you can do manually. The actual driver may or may not implement each and every command. For example, while there may exist to query an instrument's current setting, these are not typically implemented in a LabVIEW driver since the program is controlling the instrument, there's little reason to query it.

Message Edited by Dennis Knutson on 05-29-2009 12:27 PM