Make a program in your VI and auto execute it (as in controlling a pilot), how to achieve

[_Faust]

Ok well I have another one for you experts. The goal of my labview programming is to build a VI that controls a small setup with pumps and valves etc. . It's for filtration experiments.

Now, the user should be able to setup the experiments he wants, save it, and then letting labview auto execute this. 

My global question, where do I start learning how to do this? 

[falkpl]

Where to start.  REQUIREMENTS AND ARCHITECTURE

1.  What devices are you to control.  do they have drivers, what communication protocol to talk to the devices.

2.  what functionality of the devices are you using, what command sets need to be implemented,

3.  Safety requirements ...

4.  software architecture, do you need to have user intervention (manual mode), does the process need scripting of the experiment, how many channels and what rate do you need to change channel perameters.

I would spend some time analyzing your experiment veriables and device limitations before thinking about the vi you have to implement.

[_Faust]

What I already have:

a)succesful analog and digital communication through labview with all the devices (valves, pumps and flowmeters).

b)logging of the parameters and real-time monitoring

So what I'm looking for is how do I let labview read from a program that I write, e.g.:

-set flowrate to 20l/min -next step-

-open valve   -next step-

-wait 4 mins  -next step-

etc.

Of course, manual override is desirable.

Thank you for your comment by the way, appreciated!

[Guruthilak]

I suggest use some scripting...what i mean to say is...

1) you deevlop the application (with proper architecture) and give full control to the user (operator) for performing any operation he would like to do.. (like turinig on/off valve setting the required parameters or copyig files ..etc)

2) Record this Test steps everytime when ever an appropriate action is performed on the UI

3) Give an option for the user to rearrange the test steps or to modify them and then save them (call it Test scripts).

4) The test steps can have proper tags for identifying purpose (this will be useful when you run the test scripts later programtaically without the need of user say AUTORUN mode)

5) Give an option to create the Test suites (which is a collection of test scripts)

6) Give an option to load and run single or multiple test suites/scripts......

7)Now have a buttom called 'Autorun" to run all the selected test suites/scripts.

8)Provide an option for aborting the test script/test suite

Having typed all these i suddenly remebered why dont you use an combination and "TESTSTAND and LabVIEW" since Teststand will ease your job by doing most of the job said above

Guru