Anyone heard of power grabber software from Clayton Industries -- please help

[popeyeroo]

Hi everyone, i have a purchased a (heavily modified by factory) chassis dynometer that is optionally controlled by windows 95 computer with a AT-MIO-16L-9 board. the controlling software is called power grabber 2.4 written in 1996 by clayton industries.

They no longer have a patent or copyright on this software and no longer support anyone with these old dynos. the machine works perfectly without computer control (ie a seperate pendant handheld unit) however i have spent many hours trying to get the software to work. The documentation that came with the software asks to install NI-DAQ 4.8.0. drivers and this ends up in a windows group called labview created by the software install. Wdaconf configures the board and it passes its test.

When i start the power grabber program i get an error 10401 at ai group config, device not national instruments etc, clicking ok proceeds to error 7 labview: file not found or ni-488 non existant board where i cannot proceed as it error loops.

Would anyone be interested in obtaining a copy of this software from me and using a windows 98 machine try to diagnose the errors as they seem to be ni-daq/labview related and i have no experience in this field, i have a spare board that i could post out, i would be happy to compensate.

There is nothing out there internet wise that shows up with this software, i know from the previous owner that the system was used to tune high performance factory cars in Perth Australia during the 90's, however the original computer was stolen so all we have are the original 3.5 disks and paperwork and all the wireing from the controller board to the card.

Regards

Andrew

[Yamaeda]

If driver are done in LV you should be able to upconvert in steps and hopefully get it to work in a newer LV. It sounds like starting point is LV 4-5?

Try the upconvert thread with the code zipped, and with a little luck nothing else is needed.

/Y

[LV_Pro]

Is the "power grabber" program an exe or a bunch of .llb or .vi program files? Or none of the above?

I'm guessing that this is your post? http://forums.land-and-sea.com/showthread.php?p=3773

[popeyeroo]

Hi Putnam,

yes that is my post, i'm searching for help where i can, in the end i can purchase new software and hardware to do what this 'old' software can do but it will set me back @$8500

and i would be just throwing away perfectly fine hardware.

The program is on 2 1.44 mb old disks and is .exe when installed on windows 95 ; pwrgrab.exe ; 4.78 mb in size.

can i send this to you via email for your advice ? , i am sure the copyright and also the patent has expired and was not renewed on this software.

regards

Andrew

[LV_Pro]

Andrew,

   I sent you a private message (note the little envelope in the upper right of the screen).

Putnam

[Phil_]

If the original PC was stolen and the error you are getting is complaining about the lack of a ni-488, surely this means that the error you are getting is related to the old GPIB card being stolen along with the old PC?

How have you connected the hardware to your new computer?

[popeyeroo]

Hi Phil,

i have the software and the recommended daq card ( ATMIO-16L-9 )  loaded onto another windows 95 pentium 2 (1995) computer.

I have the original disks for the program and they have a readme file that explains the installation process and also which daq board to use.

I also have the disks that have NI-DAQ ver 4.8.5 drivers that loads up fine and has wdaqconf inside the labview group (windows 98).

Using wdaconf i can configure the daq card and also test its settings and all that works fine.

I think the error is because i have not set up the card or drivers or card settings to be able to communicate with the software.

The software starts and i get this below in a popup box

error 10401 occured at AI Group config

possible reasons:

NI-DAQ: LV  the specified device is not a

national instruments product, orthe driver

does not support the device (e.g., the driver was

released before the device was supported)

clicking ok gives another popup box

Error 7 occured at an unidentified location.

possible reasons:

LABVIEW: file not found.

OR

NI-488: non existent board

the program then allows exit only or simply windos loops with the last error.

I believe these are general errors and dont point me in the true area, for example i know the daq card is national instuments

and these errors are all over the forums for other problems.

Regards

Andrew

[LV_Pro]

In a number of error messages the default error was missing hardware, sort of a "file not found, or missing GPIB card" regardless of whether you ever had GPIB, so take complaints about GPIB with a grain of salt unless you know it is/was supposed to have one. 

How does the Dyno connect to the computer, just with the analog/digital connections, or does the DYNO or any of its hardware have a GPIB connector (big, multipin connector, sort of like the old parallel printer port ones)?

[popeyeroo]

The dynos control box has a plugged cable labeled Computer that goes to another small box that has a simple connector board that picks up @ 15 wires

that then connect to a ribbon cable that plugs dirrectly into the rear ( 50 pin) of the national instruments AT-MIO-16 daq board installed on the computers motherboard - is that plug what you call the GPIB ??

the daq boards i/o connector pin assignments that are being used are

pins 3-8   6 wires analog input channels

pin 20   analog channel 0 output

pin 23 and 24 analog output ground and digital ground

pin 26 digital i/o port B signals 0

pin 32digital i/o port B signals 3

pin 33  3 wires Digital ground

pin 41 source 1 from the Am9513A counter 1 signal

[LV_Pro]

No, that is the DIO connector. I didn't think you had any GPIB "stuff" it is usually used to control standalone instruments, or power supplies or the such.