my photon counter hangs up by attemt to comunicate

[Peteris]

I have a SRS400 (Stanford research systems) photon counter which hangs when I'm trying to comunicate to it via NI Measurement & Automation explorer. It is possible to carry on only when the SRS400 is restarted. Then everything goes well. I think this counter does not like some comands what the Measurement & Automation explorer is using by attempt to comunicate with it.

What must be done to make it not to hang?

Peteris

[nyc_(is_out_of_here)]

What commands are you sending using MAX?

Send them one by one and see which one is causing the problem.

I would also download the manual for the instrument and read the GPIB commands section.

[Peteris]

1) What commands are you sending using MAX?

I did the standard "comunicate with instrument procedure" and it (phot. counter) hanged. No response to any comands.

I did the same in interactive control and wrote:

ibdev 0 23 0 13 1 0

and it went well. After that

ibwrt "cm0"

and it also  was allright, I got the necessary response.  cm0 is a comand, specific to the instrument. It uses ASCII two character comands with variables (if necessary) and a carriage return or end of line character. I have got the manual.

The SR400 is quite old, made in 1987, and uses non standard gpib comands. It hangs after the standard "comunicate with instrument" procedure done by max. And max shows an EBUS error.  The ni spy shows that it does not like the ibclr - it shows up red. But if I write it myself in interactive contol it does not do any harm, only recalls the default settings of SR400, what is not good, but it does not stop the response for other comands.

It would be nice if you could tell me how to change the settings of max, that it would send only this comand

ibdev 0 23 0 13 1 0, and nothing else.

And after that only what I need.

Peteris

[nyc_(is_out_of_here)]

We have MAX 3.0.1 running on one of our test stations.

From what I can tell, "Communicate with Instrument" doesn't do anything until

you click on Query, Write, or Read buttons. It by default starts with a prefilled "*IDN?"

command. Are you executing that by chance?  If so, that is what is causing the lockup.

Clear that textbox and start with the command cm0 that you want to send.

Message Edited by nyc on 03-03-2006 01:35 PM