Controlling an Agilent E4428C with Labview

[Bill2@NGC]

Hello All,

We have an Agilent E4428C Signal Generator, and I've downloaded the LV driver and set up the IP address on it.  I can ping it, but I can't see it in MAX.  Are there some instructions on how to set it up for use with LV?  The manual doesn't say anything about LV. 

Thanks in advance.

[MXI Master]

Bill,

For TCP/IP Instruments you have to add them manually in MAX.  Here is Knowledge Base article that will get you up and going.

After you get the instrument identified in MAX, you can use the LabVIEW Instrument Driver that you have already downloaded.

Post back if you have any problems doing this.

[smercurio_fc]

---

@MXI Master wrote:

After you get the instrument identified in MAX, you can use the LabVIEW Instrument Driver that you have already downloaded.

---

Technically, you don't really need to do that. You can just use the right VISA resource name, as in "TCPIP0::<ipaddress>::INSTR". You only need to set it up in MAX if you want to use an alias rather than the full VISA resource name.

[MXI Master]

You are correct, you do not need to set up a TCP/IP Instrument in MAX to use it in LabVIEW. I should have made that clearer :smiles:

[Bill2@NGC]

Thanks for the information.  But neither directly using the resource name nor Manually setting up MAX worked.  I ended up hooking it up to a GPIB to ethernet box, did a scan for instruments and Max found it that way.  Now I can control the signal generator. 

By the way, the Knowledge Base web page kept hanging and never did load the images, but the text was clear enough.  Thanks again guys.

[MXI Master]

Looks like trustworthy GPIB comes through again, though it is odd that the LXI did not work. What errors were you getting?

Also, I will look into the image problem with the Knowledge Base article.

[Bill2@NGC]

On Knowledge Base article's Step 3., Max couldn't find it on the subnet.  I don't remember exactly what happened when I manually entered the ip address, but it also didn't work.  On the 3rd method, I had to guess at the Port number (the Agilent doc didn't say what it should be.), but that didn't work either.

[MXI Master]

It might be worth noting here, that if your device is on a different sub-net it may be more difficult for it to communicate. This can occur simply by having a router or switch that has it's own subnet. The other road block I see often is firewalls, software and hardware can be at fault here. It is a good idea to make sure both of these have a open port for your device to use.

[Bill2@NGC]

Everything is on the same subnet, and I was able to ping it. 

[MXI Master]

It was on the same subnet, and you were unable to address it directly either?  There must be something we are missing here, sorry.