Connecting and controlling Aerotech's Soloist to LabVIEW program

[laserkid]

Hey everyone,

I am completely new to LabVIEW, but am trying to use the program to operate a system of moveable stages. Right now I have the stages hooked up to Aerotech's Soloist CP which has its own software to operate the controllers. Here I'm good.

However, I would like to control the stages directly through LabVIEW by incorporating the Soloist controler into my VI. The Soloist help manual has references to using LabVIEW, however the LabVIEW manual does not have any information that I can find to walk me through the process.

Could someone please suggest a comprehensive plan to connect and control the Soloist controller to LabVIEW?

Thanks

[Jochen]

Hi Justin,

I haven't worked with the controller, that you have mentioned, so i can only provide some general guidance.

First of all it's important to know, which interface (e. g. RS232, CAN, Ethernet, Analog or digital I/O,...) and which protocol your device is using (e. g. Modbus, CANOpen, Ethernet I/P, Ethercat,...).

The second question is what level of external control is required. Does your drive accept high level control commands (e. g. "Move to position x with acceleration a and velocity v") or do you need to transfer real-time trajectory data for distributed multi-axis synchronization and contouring profiles.

Please check with the vendor of the controller, if there is a LabVIEW library available to communicate with their controller. Otherwise you will have to implement a LabVIEW API by yourself. In this case, you should refer to the LabVIEW examples library, which provides a lot of examples for all common interfaces and protocols.

As a third option there might be a way to communicate from LabVIEW with the Soloist software by using a software interface like ActiveX or .NET.

Regards,

Jochen

[NickDunn]

Hello,

I saw you had the same problem a couple of years ago my team is facing. We are trying to use Labview to control a rotary stage from aerotech along wity pneumatics using the soloist, but not the soloist software. Every example VI requires the program to connect and disconnect from the controller each time, making while loops unusable. How did you solve your problem, and do you have any advice for us?

Thank you

[Big_Guy]

I have a situation where I need to convert a visual basic program to labview and using the soloist and a rotary stage.  Where did you get the Labview VI's for the controller?  Were they included in the installation disc from Aerotech?

Thank you.

[BertMcMahan]

IIRC you have to buy the LabVIEW connectivity stuff from Aerotech. At its core they're just dll calls in a wrapper.

[LVUser1994]

Hi, can you provide a URL to the Aerotech's LabVIEW connectivity software (API?).

Thanks

[stef_neosoft]

https://www.aerotech.com/resources-software-downloads-activation/