Ocean Optics USB4000 Spectrometer

[halsbane]

Hi NathanT, sorry for not replying earlier.

Q1: I am using USB 2.0 (hi-speed, 480 Mbps)

Q2: I do not believe that I am doing anything else with the device, though I am not sure how to check this to be absolutely sure.

Q3: I am not using external triggering

Q4: I've just tried it on a different PC and it is still happening. This PC had the OO SpectraSuite, whereas the other computer didn't. I moved the ezusb.sys driver from the system32 directory and put it on the desktop. I then made a new VISA driver per the above posts using the VISA Driver Development Wizard.

I hope nothing is wrong with the USB4000. It was working just fine with the SpectraSuite software. I need to run it in LabVIEW because I need to synchronize a spectrum acquisition with another piece of equipment.

[guilio_2008]

I actually tried another computer and it worked fine.  I uninstalled the fieldpoint drivers, installed Omnidrivers, ran Omnidoctor, then installed java 1.6 JDK and now it works, but on the other computer, no luck.

[NathanT]

Hello Dave,

       I looked into the issue further and found out that there is some very valuable information in the readme.  It outlines how to load the correct inf file and identifies that there is a known issue of the device either working with the LV driver or the Ocean Optics Software, but not both at the same time.

       Please try the steps in the readme and see if that resolves the situation.  If they do not, please try starting with a clean system (if possible) and don't install the Ocean Optics Software.

Cheers,

NathanT

[trneb1]

Hello,

I am not sure if this is the place to post this, but I have been struggling to use these NI drivers on windows server 2008 for either a USB 4000 or 2000. Has anyone had any success using the NI .inf files on a server version of windows

thanks!

[NathanT]

Hello trneb1,

        What processor does your machine have?  I checked the "Ocean Optics USB4000_vista.inf" file and it has the "NTamd64" value which should allow it to run well with non-Itanium 64-bit processors.

        Do you have access to Vista x64 or Win7 x64 machines/images that you could test with?

        Does the Ocean Optics software work correctly on Windows Server 2008?

Cheers,

NathanT

[Broken_Arrow]

Hmmmm. 12 pages dedicated to one device. This is what happens when a company doesn't take LabVIEW seriously. 

[trneb1]

NathanT,

thanks for the reply! FYI, I have used the drivers with great sucess on a 32-bit XP laptop running a USB2000 and USB4000 at the same time...

To answer your questions:

--        What processor does your machine have? 

 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819115017

--       I checked the "Ocean Optics USB4000_vista.inf" file and it has the "NTamd64" value which should allow it to run well with non-Itanium 64-bit processors.

I wonder if that is the issue, this being a 32-bit system? could I just change NTamd64 to NTamd32? (sorry, I am a newb with regards to the .inf files)

--       Does the Ocean Optics software work correctly on Windows Server 2008?

Spectra Suite works ok and detects and runs both spectrometers. I can also run the USB 2000 using an old copy of the OOIDRV32.dll file, but it is very buggy and crashes when trying to use the USB4000 at all....

[Jason_P]

Hi,

Maybe I am misunderstanding, but it seems like you might be mixing and matching a bit here... You must either use:

1) The OmniDriver provided by Ocean Optics

2) The NI drivers

If you are using Spectrasuite, then you are using OmniDriver.  You must uninstall the NI drivers.  If you want to write LabVIEW code to run your spectrometer, you must either write it using the OmniDriver API, or remove OmniDriver and install the NI drivers.  

In my experience, they don't play well together on the same system.  I don't use the NI drivers - I wrote my own VISA-based drivers before NI got to it, and I haven't seen a reason to change.  But NI's drivers are virtually identical to mine, so I think my experiences may be valid here - and I can tell you that my drivers have been successfully run on Windows XP SP3, Win 7 (32-bit), and Server 2008 (32-bit) for USB2000, 4000, and 2000+ spectrometers.

JasonP - CLD

PS: Broken Arrow - I can see why this post may lead someone to that conclusion, but in all fairness I have to jump in here and defend Ocean Optics a bit.  They do take LabVIEW very seriously...  I've worked with their OEM group and found them incredibly helpful.  Based on requests from my company and their other customers, they worked with NI to make the new LabVIEW drivers and offer them for free.  This is just one of those posts people keep adding to rather than starting new ones.  

[trneb1]

So as an update, in server 2008, I went into device manager and uninstalled the ocean optics drivers (with delete driver option checked). Rebooted and everything is happy now as the system automatically used the NI drivers. Currently running both spectrometers happily with labview VI's 🙂

thanks for the advice!

[NathanT]

Thank you to JasonP for his reminder that the two different drivers are mutually exclusive.

Thank you to trneb1 for updating us on his progress.

Thanks,

NathanT