MAX Alias name not found in VI VISA Control

[blue_cortina]

Hi

I'm trying to set up Alias names in MAX which I can then understand more clearly when writing the VIs that talk to the different boards I'm using. For instance I'm setting a 6723 Card alias to be "AO" in MAX. The 6723 is connected to a PC running LV8_20. The 6732 is in a PXI Rack.

When I open up the VI which talks to the card the VISA control doesn't list "AO" just "Devx" even when I use browse. Shouldn't it display "AO" ? Or have I missed out a step ?

Thanks for reading

Message Edited by blue_cortina on 02-08-2007 06:21 AM

[blue_cortina]

I've looked into this further and found that when you do a rename under the "PXI System" the names don't seem to find their way to the LabVIEW VIs. It seems you have to do the aliases under the "NI-DAXmq devices" part or "NI-IMAQ parts devices" for example in order that LV to pick them up. Perhaps the link between the entries under PXI and under the boards entry has not been thought through properly - or am I missing something ? Surely if MAX can populate the same board in two different parts of its list it can sort out alias ? If anyone can shed light on this it would be appreciated.

[TheWay]

Hi there,

A VISA Alias is different from a device name. A VISA alias can be thought of the address to the device.  When you rename the device under "NI-DAQmx Devices", you are changing the name of the device.  When you rename the VISA Alias under "PXI System", you are setting a name for the address of the device. Both the device name and device VISA Alias can be selected in LV from different VIs. The device name shows up when selecting actual channels in the device (eg. using DAQmx Create Channel VI) to do a task. The VISA Alias shows up when trying access the device registers (eg. using VISA Open VI). 

I hope I've shed some light on this topic.  I've attached a VI just to show you where the VISA alias shows up and where the device name shows up. Let me know if you have any other questions.

Regards

Way S.

NI UK Applications Engineer