Controlling Agilent E4438C ESG using NI-VISA GPIB

[Puneet_K]

Hii all,

I am controlling Agilent E4438C ESG using NI VISA GPIB...Whenever i want to set the amplitude and frequency, i will send it the commands....but when i want to capture the information i am unable to do it....

I gone through the VISA GPIB user and programing manual ..there is various functions such as ibwrt etc..How can i use those commands in the LabVIEW...

One thing more ..i wanna to know, the commands vary according to the instrument type..

If yes from where i can get those commands for Agilent E4438C ESG....

Puneet

[Dennis_Knutson]

You should download the driver. The main search page is at http://sine.ni.com/idnetwork/. Just enter 4438 into the search field and you will find the driver.

Your comment about capturing the information is not clear. What exactly do you want to read back from the instrument? You should spend some time reading the programming manual for the instrument. When you find the query (a command terminated with a '?") you want to issue, you would see if it exists in the driver. If it does, just execute the driver function. If it doesn't, then you do a VISA write of that command and then do a VISA Read.

p.s. The programming manual is available from the vendor.

Message Edited by Dennis Knutson on 02-13-2008 09:18 PM

[Puneet_K]

Hiii

I already downloaded that drivers...as this instrument is signal generator,  want to see the waveform which i am generating from E4438 ESG.

I did not get the programming manual for this instrument n i searched a lot....pls send me the link if you have...

Pls also let me know what are the main chapters on which i have to give more time in VISA programming manuals.

Regards

Puneet

[Dennis_Knutson]

The address for Agilent is www.agilent.com. I can't imagine what kind of web search did not turn that up. They have a search option on their main page. I just did a search for 4438C and got a link to the manual page.

I don't believe the instrument has a command to return the generated waveform. I've not gone over the programming manuals in detail so you may turn something up. Many signal generators do not have this capability. You're expected to know what it is you are programming the instrument to generate, I guess.

[Maulik]

Hello,.

        I am working with Agilent 8960 alongwith Agilent E4438C. I want to set the neighbour cell parameters ie Agilent E4438C will act as a neihbour cell for Agilent 8960. I already have a code for it provided to me by the Agilent Vendor. But I am not able to figure out how to enter this code with the help of Labview in to E4438C?? The code is a set of GPIB commands. can any one please help me??