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

[ROtake]

HI Andrew

It seems that this is a very generic error, not related to GPIB. Sometimes it gives this message if there is a file missing, or it cant find the configuration file

Since you have a exe program not the LV source code, it's going to be difficult to sort it out. 

You have to make sure you install the Ni-DAQ Before installing the card, then install the program.

If you haven't done this way I would recomend you restart from scracth. 

I hope it helps. 

ricardo

[popeyeroo]

Thanks Ricardo,
I will give that a go this week, I also feel it is a simple file missing or files not in the right spot.
Also the way windows 95 installs new hardware could be making the board invisible to the program but not to the nidaq.
There are no instructions for installing the board with the clay tons paperwork.

The documentation says to load the program first then load the drivers.
The setup file for the program creates the lab view folder or group and puts the power grabber program in there.
The driver disks setup file loads nidaq files into windows and windows system and also puts the nidaqconfig program into the lab view folder.

When I open the nidaqconfig program I can configure the sytem to match the boards memory access and interrupt etc switches and pins and test
The configuration, it also let's me change how the board interprets the inputs and also test the voltages for each channel,so at least
I know the board is communicating with the drivers and can send and receive from the dyno controller.

I feel soon I will be going in circles haha

[rolfk]

Without source code it is going to be though to debug this.

error 10401 is a generic NI-DAQ error that means basically that the software could not connect to the DAQ device with the internally conficured device number. I would guess that this device number is set in the configuration dialog that you say you can't access due to missing password. With that things get really tricky. The subsequent error is likely that it tries to load some configuration file but either because of the previous error it is already messed up somehow, or there is indeed some sort of file that you would need to install as well or maybe would be created in the configuration dialog. Without source code or without at least the ability to go into the configuration dialog, this would seem like a very frustrating exercise to get working.

[popeyeroo]

Hi Rolf,

thanks for your input about this, i also think its about a simple setup error with regards to how windows has the card loaded and the settings the program expects to see.

The documentation that came with the software does talk about a fresh install and to let it use the default directory "labview" or if you need to use a diferent

folder name you must contact a Claytons service technician to enter the clayton factory password to change the name.

And of course this password could have been changed if anyone had to get inside that particular option to change something and believe me i have spent a bit of time

'guessing' the password lol.

The initial screen that comes up sheds light on this as it seems it could be it cannot find the files it wants;

its a message popup and has 2 buttons

upgrade or startup

which is initial startup or first time upgrade

note:

if none of the above fit your condition then you may have a file error or your data/setup could be corrupted.

use your backup to restore all *.dat files and try again.

the fact that every time i start the program this comes up means that something is adrift with its initial install.

It is so close yet frustratingly out of reach to get this to fire up , im like a dog with a bone.

Everything about this gear is so nicely built and short of finding the man who installed this all i can do

is to keep loading it all up with diferent settings or im yet to try and see if i can install the daq board as a different

device number besides device 1. thats a windows 95 thing i guess.

Unless someone has the ability to hack the powergrabber.exe program which i do appriciate is almost impossible

i will have to let it go and replace the computer control side of it with another new system like land n sea or sportdevices have,

their new systems are used to upgrade my type of dyno that wouldn't have the upgraded factory systems that someone has spent on mine.

regards

Andrew

[ROtake]

are you able to change the device nbr with NIDaq  ?

[popeyeroo]

hi ROtake,

i uninstalled the device and reinstalled it today as device 10, so yes i can change the device #, its a slow process and

it made no difference.

I'm starting to decode the pinouts from the adapter box to the daq card in the hope of working out what each wire does

so if i need to i can graft it into a modern dyno program and the daq unit they use.

There are 6 analog input wires 3 are black going to channels 8,9,10

the 3 coloured wires in pair with the blacks go to channels 0,1,2

1 analog output channel 0 wire

a digital ground wire

a analog output ground

2 wires for digital i/o port b channel 0 and 3

another digital ground with 3 wires to it

and 1 wire going to source1 counter signal.

What i dont know is if the program let the dyno hardware compute the hp or the program

computes it out using raw data from the daq card.

when i tried to test the card bty reading channel volts and sending voltage out on the digital channel

i got the air solinoid to turn on and off which activates the roller brake and centre lift for driving on and off the dyno.

I guess i could put a car on it and run it up and see what signals come into those channels  to guess

what the program was doing with the signals from the daq card.

You carnt put power to the eddy current coils unless the sytem sees the rollers spinning and there are 2 ways to load up the eddy current coils

as well, ramped load and constant load.

Tried a complete reload tonite and still same errors ---- bah

regards

Andrew

[popeyeroo]

To everyone who gave input to my problem, thank you all.

I reloaded again this morning and setup the irq etc as per normal using windows hardware installer, then rebooted again.

I then fired up the nidaq setup program and installed the card as device 2    i had tried 1 and 10 before.

And success i now have the dyno program talking to the daq board.

The only error i get is on some functions

error 7 occured at an unidentified location.

possible reasons:

LabVIEW: file not found

OR

NI-488: non existant board.

i havent seen any mention of a ni-488 board, im not sure what that is, does anyone know what ni-488 is ?

so i think i may still have a file missing and i am now looking at when the error comes up and it is when the

program would normally want to change a setting, so maybe a .dat file.

It doesnt stop the program, i click ok in the error popup and everything continues on.

Now my next job is to work out what voltages from the dyno the program would normally expect to see and to setup

the daq board to read these inputs properly, currently it is in a factory default state and i know the analog inputs are in

a range of 0 to 5 volts and the board is set to read -5 to +5 volts and then there are the digital settings that i have no idea about what the signal should be

there are quite a few different ways of changing those channels input and output signals.

[Dennis_Knutson]

The program is going to setup the DAQ board and if you 0-5 analog signals, then the default range is correct. There is nothing to setup for digital except to set pins as input or output and the program is going to set that as well.

Even if the program continues after the file error, all that could mean is bad error handling in the VI.

[popeyeroo]

ok thanks for that so if thats the case when i can i will plug it into the dyno controller and see what happens.

Thanks again for educating me on nidaq.

regards

Andrew

[LV_Pro]

NI-488 is that interface (GPIB) to control instruments that isn't in your setup. A few of the error messages National Instruments had/has, gives you two things it might be, in this a case a file not found (possibly a settings file setup on installation, or created at the end of a run?), not a GPIB fault.

Good Luck!