Scan for Instruments and get their Serial numbers.

[DeepJames]

I have to create a small LabView Gui (Exe-file) with a Scan button. The Scan should scan for all connected instruments and create to following list showing all instruments connected on the computer. The name will be found in the excel file. There is names given for every instrument. So I should match the serial number from the GBIP/USB interface scan with the Excel File. The problem is for the Counter 53132A, the serial number is 0 when checked on NI MAX with *IDN? command. How do I add a serial number through LabVIEW. I am new to this. SO PLEASE GUIDE ME .

[paul_cardinale]

Check the programming guild for the 53132A.  Unfortunately, not all instruments report their serial numbers.

Also, watch out for bogus S/Ns being reported by NI-MAX.

[rolfk]

The manual for the 53131A/53132A documents as return value for the *IDN? command that it will return something like this:

HEWLETT-PACKARD, 53131A,0,XXXX

                                or

HEWLETT-PACKARD, 53132A,0,XXXX

This is a comma separated list of values, with the first value being the manufacturer name, the second the device number and the third is usually the serial number or whatever the manufacturer considers a useful identifying element, and the last one is the firmware revision or date, which the developers of that device found a useful information so there will be the firmware date code in there instead of the XXXX.

Seems NI-MAX is doing everything that it is supposed to do and the counter is simply not providing a meaningful serial number with the *IDN? command. Maybe it has a different command that does but that is an exercise for you to look through the very large manual and/or ask HP/Agilent/Keysight support to tell you.

My suspicion is that this device has no publicly documented way of querying the serial number and it will be hard to impossible to get information about possibly unofficial query commands for that.

[DeepJames · Accepted solution]

Thank you for the reply.

There is no way to programmatically query the serial number or write the serial number to the instrument as calibration strings are not supported by these counters.
The only reference to the serial number is the label on the rear panel.