Interface HP/Agilent 4145 with PC

[GeorgeRH]

Hi everyone:

Sorry to bring this post alive after so much time, but I think my situation is related with this topic. I have an HP4145B. I managed to get communication between the HP4145B and LabView2015 using the GPIB-USB-B interface from NI. Moreover I use the HP4145B instrument driver. In LabView I use the example model for the HP4145B instrument. The GPIB address is set to the default 17. I have communication with the equipment as I can read the serial identifier of the equipment when asking for it to the interface. Moreover I used only one SMU output of the equipment which I connected to a multimeter using an adapter. I selected 1 V amplitude for the SMU voltage source and I can read the 1V value on the multimeter.

Some concerns I have are:

1. The value is shown on the screen of the multimeter for about 2-3 sec, then it goes to 0 V. Is this normal?

2. When doing a sweep of the voltage from o V to 1 V (101 points), the 1 V value on the multimeter screen stay longer this time and when wanting to see themeasurement I can the the sweep is taking place because the small marker on the bottom of the I V graph on the equipment is sweeping from left to right a couple of times. However I cannot see any data trace on the monitor, neither in the graphn of the interface in LabView.

3. On top of that I receive an error D 00 40. Going through the manual this seems to be a data error: oo in this case reflects X axis, and here I think there is no problem, and 40 represents Y axis I belive, and it seems that here there is a problem. However I have not figure it out :(. Any feedback is more than welcomed.

I attach some printscreens where you can see the way I have set up the Channel Definition, Source Setup and Graphics Plot. Moreover in the Graphics Plot it can be seen that I get an error code from the HP4145B. error code 6. Any thoughts on that?

Therefore I need your support in getting rid of the error I mentioned and be able to see the measurement on LabView VI.

Best regards and thanks in advance to all,

George.

[GeorgeRH]

Hi guys:

Some updates:

I managed to avoid the error D 00 40 on the CRT display of the HP4145B (I was defining something wrong in the source and channel definition). I can now input data from Labview to HP4145. Now I can see the measured data on the monitor of the HP4145B.

The setup definition is as follows, and I can define either from the VI interface (when the equipment is remotely controlled) either manually:

Channel Definition: SMU1: Name V: V1, Name I:I1   Source: Mode : V; FCTN : VAR1

                               The rest of the channels are not assigned, as now I only try one port measurement, to see if I can take out data from the HP4145

Source Setup: VAR1 :V1

             Sweep: LINEAR from 0 to 1V in 0,01 V steps

However I cannot yet get the measured data out of the HP4145 in the VI interface in LabView. I still get error code 6 and no data is represented on the graph plot, which seems to be as you said, an data output related error. It seems that the most important function in the VI HP4145 (data extraction from the equipment) is not working. I suspect that there could be the fact that maybe the equipment is too slow compared with the notebook on which I have installed LabView and then the LAbView interface is asking to quickly for the data....I don´t know.

Did any of you come accross such issue in which the measured data on the display of the HP4145B cannot be sent via GPIB to the VI interface in LabView? Again I believe this is related with error code 6 I get in "error out" block of Graphics Display.

I think there should be somewhere in the block diagrams of the HP 4145B Example.vi some "Data Output" block in which I could add maybe a higher delay, but I don´t know now where that might be. Do you have any experience with this? I have no experience with LabView so far. I will try nevertheless to find a solution.

Best regards,

George.