Help with GPIB and Kikusui power supplies

[newbie2cnc]

This will be my first experience with GPIB and so far not very enjoyable.

What I am trying to do is use the GPIB to communicate with the PIA4830 power supply controller to operate 11 PAS160-2 power supplies. I need to be able to set the current and voltage as well as record the voltage and current at specific time (1hour intervals). I am using LabVIEW 7.0, Ni GPIB card. What I have got so far is nothing to work. According to the power supply manual you should be able to input a “*IDN?” and get the model, name. I do get this. When you input “IOUT?” you should get output current value I get err 004. None of the inputs get an out put. I am sure I just don’t know what I am doing so any help will be appreciated.

Thanks

[Dennis_Knutson]

You might want to give the instrument driver available here a try. It looks like it also needs some ActiveX component available from Kikusui but I don't have a link to that. Even if you don't use the driver, you may be able to use it as a reference. Is the error 4 being returned by LabVIEW or the instrument. If it's LabVIEW, then it's "Invalid argument or arguments." for NI-488. You might want to post the code you've written so someone can look at it. You should also test all of the commands in MAX before trying to write your own code.

[RayFarmer]

Hi,

Have you setup the channel name in MAX or you entering a valid channel name?

Regards

Ray Farmer