Learn LabVIEW CLD

[govindsankar]

Hi,

I want to take the CLD exam. So what should I learn to do so. I have alreardy learned LabVIEW core 2. Do I have to learn Core 3 as well for writing the CLD exam. Kindly let me know. Thank You.

Govind Sankar

[cbutcher]

The nice thing about the CLD is that it's fairly easy to self-evaluate if you'll be ok or not.

Download the sample exams and try taking a couple of them. If after 4 hours your application works and does most of what the requirements specify, you'll have a good chance.

Note that a sizeable fraction of the points are available for documentation, so make sure to avoid default icons and add descriptions to all VIs.

There's also a thread here (Sample Exam Solutions for Review) where you can upload your solution and ask for feedback.

[wiebe@CARYA]

IIRC, the advice is 1 year hands on experience with programming LabVIEW. A bit optimistic, IMHO. But it does depend on the work you do in that year.

Just doing core 1, 2 and 3 won't be enough for most people.

Check the solutions and evaluation of other attempts.

[govindsankar]

I have good experience in LabVIEW, I have done 4 projects in LabVIEW which collectively gives me more than 1.5 years of experience. 3 of those projects were of 6 months and 1 of them was 3 months. Actually when I did Core 2 class, it was very easy, I knew everything since I already did all those projects. But my doubt is should I learn more before writing the CLD exam. Or I can just prepare for the exam using online material and go and write the exam. 

[billko]

I agree with cbutcher.  Download the samples, they are pretty close to what you will experience in the real test.  If you find you can't finish in four hours, figure out what you do best and concentrate on being able to collect every single point in that category.  And make sure you pick up every single point in documentation and style - those are as close to "gimme's" as you can get.  Losing points in documentation and style is not acceptable.  Any points you lose there are considered "unforced errors".

[Frozen]

I agree with cbutcher. Download an example exam and work on it for 4 hours. If you are only half done, you need more practice.
BTW, the exams are very UI focused so if your projects did not involve an operator interface, you will want to study that a bit more. I only mention this because personally, I could probably count on one hand the number of times I wrote a program that a user had to interact with... and I have over 25 years LabVIEW experience.

[cbutcher]

To answer your original question, I doubt that the Core 3 course will significantly improve your chances of passing. If I recall correctly, that's more related to application design processes and workflow setup than actual programming. Maybe the error handling section could be useful?

Go ahead and do the practice exams. The first one I did, I couldn't finish in 4 hours. The second one was a bit closer, nearly finished but not quite. By the third one, I'd say there's a pattern and it's possible to plan what you're going to write essentially in advance (although I did consider Actor Framework when I took the exam, but there was a specific detail that made it impractical...)

What you should learn is how to write a State Machine and/or a Queued Message Handler. If you're comfortable with those, the practice exams might be all you need.

[Jacobson-ni]

I've never actually taken Core 3 but I wouldn't think it would help all that much based on what I know of the course.

For each of the practice exams and the actual exam I took I don't think I ever needed to make more than a handful of VIs and always kept everything to a single event-driven state machine. I imagine most things covered in Core 3 wouldn't be all that relevant for such a small application.

[BertMcMahan]

I've taken Core 3 and it wouldn't help much, if at all, on the CLD. Core 3 is more about project management and wrangling larger projects. The CLD is about whether or not you can put together a coherent program in just 4 hours.