using VISA to control properietary hardware via ethernet

[diadev]

Dear forum!

I am trying to make a proprietary hardware system respond to a VISA controller.

Since we already have a telnet-based ethernet-interface, and no GPIB, COM or USB ports, ethernet (TCP/IP) seems to be the best choice to control the device.

So.. now I am stuck.

How can I implement our side (ordinary windows xp running inside the properietary measurement hardware) to properly interact with VISA commands? Are there any examples, documentation, where do I start? (The final result should be a Metcal-integration which supports VISA.)

Best wishes,

diadev

[Norbert_B]

diadev,

VISA is a communcation layer abstracting the real transfer layer for the application. Nevertheless, it is not a control layer, so the commands you can use with your instrument do not depend on VISA but on the instrument itself. So you need to know the commands for the instrument in order for a successful communication.

That being said, VISA using TCP is quite comparable to VISA using GPIB or serial. You can get info on the resource name control in the help of VISA open. This should answer the biggest part of the question. The rest depends a bit on the instrument. This is because when working with TCP, there are certain package sizes and similar which could/must be configured. See this KB as an example.

hope this helps,

Norbert