Need tutorial for how to use NI-VISA drivers for HP Agilent E1419A

[tanonev]

I'm trying to read in information from the E1419A board, but I'm having a lot of trouble. Where can I find comprehensive information on how to use the instrument drivers in LabView? Are there any examples online? My LabView text says that many instruments have nice sample VIs, but E1419A doesn't have any.

[Dennis_Knutson]

The actual driver for this instrument was written by Agilent. What you downloaded from the NI site was only a wrapper around the plug and play dll that you downloaded from Agilent (as the NI web page instructed you to do). You might check Agilent's web site to see if they have any app notes. What are the problems you're seeing? What type of interface do you have to the VXI chassis? Is it GPIB, MXI, embedded controller (Ni's or Agilent's)?

[tanonev]

My main problem, put bluntly, is that I have basically no idea what I am doing...what I'd like to do is set up a system where I can take multiple thermocouple readings (I have the option 011 component, so I have 64 channels, which would imply that I can have up to 64 thermocouples).
Do I need one of those 150xA modules to read in thermocouples, or can I just use the built in straight-through modules? I found an Instrument Driver VI called Temp that was supposed to convert something into temperature units in some format, but I have no idea how to implement it.
The E1419A is in a E8408A VXI Mainframe, and it is connected to the computer via a E8491B IEEE-1394 card (the one that went in slot 0), which is connected to the FireWire card in the PC.

Do I use the VISA VIs, or do I use the Instrument Drivers? Either way, I need some help in understanding how to use them.

[Dennis_Knutson]

Unless you can find something on Agilent's web site, the documentation contained in the VIs and the user manual for the instrument might be all you have to work with. I'm not familiar with this particular instrument. Hopefully, some other forum member with experience will post. I did a quick view of the functions in the driver and they appear pretty low level. The problem with this type of driver is that you don't have the source code to look at to see what instrument commands are actually being sent by each function. You can try to use some of the simpler things with the driver. I would start with the Init function. If all of the VXI and VISA drivers (from Agilent I assume) are installed correctly and you've configured the system, when you click the little arrow on the right side of the Instrument Handle control, a list of available instruments should be displayed. Your 1419 should be listed as something like GPIB-VXI0::n::INSTR where n is the address of the instrument. The initialize function will typically send an *IDN? to do an ID Query and send an *RST to reset it. You can do the same thing with a VISA Write. The driver uses VISA as well so if one works, so should the other. Sorry I can't offer more specific help. Hope someone else can.

[tanonev]

One big problem that I have is that the E1419A, for some reason, did not come with a user manual. I don't know if I just misplaced it, but I'm pretty sure it wasn't in the box. In any case, I couldn't find any online version of the manual; all I found were some specification lists.

[LoganS]

I was able to find the HP E1419A Service Manual on Agilent's website. Try it out:

HP E1419A Service Manual

You might also want to try the following manual as well:

VT1419A Multifunction Plus Measurement and Control Module User’s Manual

[tanonev]

Thanks...the second link is particularly useful, though I think I'll try to learn VEE instead of LabView to do it. I don't know LabView that well anyway, so I might as well try the other one just to see if it's easier. Besides, from what I hear, Cal Poly has some 15 complete units with mainframes and everything lying around unused, so I doubt that we're going to buy NI-DAQ tools anytime soon.

[Dennis_Knutson]

I don't think you'll find VEE any more easier than LabVIEW. The core of the driver you downloaded was written by Agilent to be used by VEE, LabVIEW, LabWindows/CVI, VB, etc. It is a plug and play DLL. All that LabVIEW does is put a wrapper around it with the Call Library Function Node.

[LoganS]

In addition, with LabVIEW you also have the benefit of using National Instrument's Measurement and Automation Explorer to verify correct installation of devices. Also, if you install all the drivers with LabVIEW, NI-VISA also comes with NI-Spy, a tool to monitor the function calls that you are making when communicating with another instrument via GPIB. All in all, I would agree with Dennis.

[tanonev]

The main difference, though, is that I have a bunch of E1419A examples to work off of in VEE. I have none in LabView. (Not that I've gotten the examples to work yet, but that's a different story...)