Communicating with Ontrak's ADR2200 via RS232

[wdparker83]

Hello,

I am an undergraduate student with virtually no experience with LabVIEW. Any help would be greatly appreciated!

The project I am working on involves controlling a gas actuator control box with LabVIEW via RS232. In short, the gas actuator control box is basically a bus board with 16 solenoid valves. These valves, when activated, allow pressurized air to pass through them. In the box, there are 2 ADR2200s (http://www.ontrak.net/adr2200.htm)  that communicate with the computer and either allow or prohibit current from passing through the valves at any given time. The ADR2200s have 8 relay ports that act as switches. Thus, when the board is told to set a certain port, current is enabled to pass through the solenoid wired into corresponding port. The solenoid is then activated and air is allowed to pass through it.

I am having problems controlling the boards using LabVIEW. As far as hardware, wiring, and cabling are concerned, I know that there are no issues. I downloaded a test program from the website of the same company that produces the ADR2200 I/O board, and I can successfully open and close the switches on the I/O boards from the computer using the commands outlined in the product user's manual. 

The issue lies in interfacing the ADR2200 boards with the LabVIEW software. I have tried using the VISA test panel to send commands to the boards, but I do not get a response from them. I know that the correct COM port is selected and is formatted correctly. In addition, I have downloaded the Basic Serial Read and Write example program from NI's website and still have not been able to get any response from the boards. I have tried using tutorials and how-to videos, but I am still not having much luck. My instinct tells me that the problem lies in the formatting of the commands that are being sent to the ADR2200. 

Any help or insight is greatly appreciated. The end goal is having a set of 16 boolean switches (1 for each valve) that when activated send a command via RS232 to the ADR2200 board that activates the corresponding relay port and valve.

[pauldavey]

Can you post some code?

What Serial commands have you tried?

Have you seen this page?

http://www.ontrak.net/labview.htm

[Dennis_Knutson]

I had a look at their example. Looks like it was written with something prior to LabVIEW 7. The style of programming is pretty bad and it uses some obsolete functions.

The test panel should work as long as you append the correct termination character. That means something like *IDN?\r where the \r is the necessary carriage return. For the example LabVIEW program, the string control should be set for \ Codes Display already but you'll need to set this for any custom code you write.

P.S. The LabVIEW example you downloaded is one that comes with LabVIEW - Help> Find Examples.