EFA 73 Labview Driver

[locktofer]

Hi folks

I am new to Labview, and starting to learn this fantastic tool, and found this cool community. I am an engineer in a CATV systems lab that I run, and I am doing some BER and MER measurements with a Rhode and Schwarz instrument, called an EFA 73. It is basically a receiver and demodulator that can measure bit error ratio. I asked my rep at R&S if they had a driver or VI  that could be used with labview to control this instrument and make it take some specific measurements for specific lengths of time etc, but they have none. There are none specific or similar for this instrument in the NI database. Anyone developed their own and are willing to share it, or can recommend what to do here? Your help is greatly appreciated.

Thanks very much and look forward to becoming an active member of this group.

Best regards,

locktofer

[wyang]

Hi guys,

I'm new to LabVIEW too...and I'm also using R&S TV test receiver EFA for data acquisition. It receives signal from QAM card and tests the MER and phase jitter. Kinda doing the same job here. I'm using a R&S frequency analyzer FSU too, this one has LabVIEW driver from R&S which the EFA doesn't.

I want to ask the same question that if someone had come up with problems like this and what did you do to get the EFA VI driver for labVIEW. Or is it not necessary to get a specific one for EFA but use substitutes?

thanks

yang

Message Edited by wyang on 07-15-2008 05:23 PM

[smercurio_fc]

Apparently, that's a pretty specific instrument, and there's still no drivers in the Instrument Driver Network. Not sure what you would use as a substitute since you would need to make sure the command sets are compatible. For instance, an analyzer made by one company may measure the same thing as an analyzer from another company, but they may use different command sets. This can even happen when dealing with similar instruments from the same company.

Given that you will probably need to write your own instrument driver. This basically involves getting out the programming manual and writing VIs for the commands. There are tons of examples in the instrument driver network that you can use. Look for the ones that are project-based, as they are written in LabVIEW 8 and are pretty recent. The older ones will use the older GPIB functions and have poor to rotten coding styles.

You can create a basic instrument driver project from within LabVIEW and there is also the Instrument I/O Assistant that you can use to get started.

A few additional links:

How to Use an Instrument Driver in LabVIEW Tutorial (gives an idea of the organization of the VIs)
Developing LabVIEW Plug and Play Instrument Drivers

[wyang]

Thanks for your info. I'm getting the driver of an HP/Agilent frequency analyzer 8594Q and guess I will need the programming manual to find out some command sets to do the coding.

Will let you guys know once I figure it out, or get stuck.

yang