Labview driver for Soltec TA220-1200 datalogger

[D Braden]

Has anybody in the labview community a labview driver or written a labview driver for a Soltec TA220-1200 datalogger?

[Kurt_NISalesEngineer]

Hi,

Via LabVIEW 8.20 > tools > Instrumentation > find instrument drivers ...  I just did a quick search on the instrument driver network (IDNET) section of www.ni.com for VI's or instrument drivers written for the Soltec TA220-1200 but the search didn't lead me to find anything. According to the summery specifications, that I only have access to via the net, it seems the instrument can be interfaced through GPIB and Serial ports.

See: http://data-acquisition.globalspec.com/datasheets/45/soltec/8922349f-2859-4815-8ab2-98c7b76d8813

The only observation that concerns me slightly is the "(IEEE 488, HPIB)" stated in the computer connection section of the summery specification - leads me to question how old or when was the instrument manufactured and whether it is now obsolete? If so then, perhaps you may want to look at suitable NI DAQ hardware that may meet the requirements ... for what you want to achieve?

Have you got an instruction manual that specifys the command set that the instrument works with? With LabVIEW version 7.X Express and above you can use the instrument IO assistant express VI (wizard) on your block diagram to make sending and retrieving commands to instruments via serial and GPIB quite easy. If you install NI Serial or NI 488.2 driver you will find the Serial and GPIB palettes appear in LabVIEW and you can go about programmatically creating VI's that can control Serial or GPIB instruments. You also have the VISA (Virtual Instrument Software Architecture) palette that has VI's that allow one to work with generic set of VI's to make lower level driver commands via various busses like GPIB and Serial. There are some example VIs that will get installed once you install the drivers to help you get started if you choose to work with these VI's / functions programmatically on the block diagram.

You will find all latest NI drivers (not LabVIEW instrument drivers) at www.ni.com/downloads > drivers & updates link.

Kind Regards,

Kurt
Applications Engineer
Nartional Instruments UK & Ireland

[Kurt_NISalesEngineer]

You can try to obtain an instrument driver by putting forward a formal request at this section of our website:

http://www.ni.com/devzone/idnet/

You can also share drivers that you code up here too.
To learn more about instrument drivers see:

http://zone.ni.com/devzone/cda/tut/p/id/4803



Hope this helps!

Kurt

Message Edited by Kurt NI AE on 11-07-2006 04:41 PM