Brooks Driver

[Levent]

Dear All,

I am looking forward to find a solution to connect my Brooks MFCs to my computer via NI GPIB and monitor and control them by Labview 7.1 FD. If you help me I will be happy.

Yours,

Levent Akyalcin

[bushman]

I was unaware that Brooks made MFC's that had GPIB interfaces.
If you have one, you would need the manual that contains the commands for the unit.
From that point, how do you want to do it?
You can write a dll that handles all the details, and then just call the dll.
You can create the MFC as an object(template class) and instantiate it for each of your MFC's. (This is what I have done inthe past).
It all depends on what the goal of the entire project is.
GB

[Levent]

In fact I would like to connect my MFCs to an interface, which converts RS232 to GPIB signals then connect that interface to my computer. Main goal is to control and monitor that MFCs by Labview. If you draw me a path to reach that target I would be happy. I wait your messages.

Yours,

Levent

[DFGray]

LabVIEW is equally good at handling RS-232 and GPIB interfaces. Unless you have a real reason to do so (e.g. all your other instruments are on GPIB), you will probably be better off using the RS-232 interface directly. Older versions of LabVIEW (6.0 and less) have two RS-232 VI sets. Use the VISA set, if you have a choice, as the older set is "gone" in newer versions of LabVIEW (VIs still work, but they are reimplemented using the VISA VIs).

Serial port VIs can be found in the Instrument I/O >> Serial palette. GPIB VIs are right next to them. Look in the LabVIEW examples and help for a template to construct an instrument driver and guidelines on how to do it. You will need the programming manual for your mass flow controller to properly construct the control sequences. I did a quick internet search for a Brooks MFC LabVIEW driver and got nothing. I did find a reference to a US Government study using LabVIEW 2 and the serial drivers to control Brooks MFCs.

If you write a driver, consider posting it to the instrument driver section of this website so others will benefit as well. Thanks.

[Ben]

Not all Brooks MFC's will talk serial.

Their Smart series devices will.

Brooks has drivers but they do not seem to know it. They may call it "Smart DDE". They can use it to mangae the calibration of the smart series controllers.

They support a DDE interface.

This link may help.


http://forums.ni.com/ni/board/message?board.id=170&message.id=76346&requireLogin=False


Ben