S: cheap LabView compatible GPIB-IEEE-488 Card

[Florian Bremer]

Hi Newsgroup,

i'm looking for a cheap GPIB-IEEE-488-Card (LabView compatible) to control a
climate-chamber with LabView 6.i. As the climate-chamber was build more than
ten years ago, i don't expect it's interface to be compatible to the
IEEE-488.2 standard.

Following information about the interface occur in the manual: IEC-bus, IEEE
488 plug connector

Is there a downward-compatibly form IEEE-488.2 to IEEE-488?

Does anybody know where i can buy such a card for few money?

I've found a Dealer in Germany (where i come from) with the following offer:
http://www.quancom.de/quancom/quancom01.nsf/home_prod_deu.htm?OpenFrameSet&F
rame=unten&Src=http://www.quancom.de/qprod01/deu/pb/gpib_1.htm

For me it seems to be quite inexpens
ive, but i have few experience within
this range. Therefore I would be glad, if you could help me. My boss would
not appreciate if spend a lot of money for a card, which does work together
with the climate-chamber.

Greetings
Florian

[LesHammer]

Electrically, GPIB hasn't changed since about 1975, I think. There was a hardware
change from English screws to Metric screws along the way, but that's easy enough
to take care of. The 488.2 was a protocol standard that was added.
Any new GPIB card should handle the old GPIB instruments just fine.
(Assuming the new GPIB card complies with the standard. I've seen some that
don't.)

Les.Hammer@CompleteTest.com

[Dennis_Knutson]

Les's answer about 488 is right on. 488.2 is just a superset of the original 488 - nothing about the electrical interface has changed. You question about low cost cards has a different problem however. The GPIB functions in LabVIEW will only work with an NI card. If a vendor offers a VISA driver for their card, then the LabVIEW VISA functions will work but I have had some problems with very old instruments and VISA. If the vendor offers GPIB drivers for LabVIEW, then use those. If all they have is a DLL that you need to call, then you've got a lot of software development ahead of you. All of this means is that the cost of the hardware is just a part of the overall cost of a project. If you manage to save $100 on the board and then have spend a week or two o
n the basic GPIB software, you really haven't saved anything.