ThorLabs KPZ101 Control

[bellahsin]

Hi,

I am new to the LabView world, I hope I can describe my questions clearly somehow.

So. I have only a KPZ101 to control my mirror holder. I have been using the .NET front panel that ThorLabs has provided, which is really user-friendly. But, I would like to control the voltage output with an additional knob (instead of controlling the voltage output with the .NET front panel). I can't say that I have made any attempt, cause I don't even know where to begin.

Ultimately, I would like to control the movement step by step, automatically. ie I want to move from 0V to 75V in multiple steps, with pressing the "GO" button only once. And of course with a step size that I can adjust at any time. I have tried it with jogging the piezo, via the .NET front panel, but that was not it. It still jumped to 75 directly, instead of moving step by step.

I would also like to control it in a sense that it moves from 0V to 75V in a prolonged time frame. Such as instead of moving the full range within 1 second, I would like to control it to be 1 hour. Is that possible?

I am feeling extremely lost. Thank you so much for your help.

[Tuco100s]

Hello bellahsin,

Have you looked into the tutorials that they have on their website?

[Gregory · Accepted solution]

Hi bellahsin,

You can create the array of voltage levels you need using "Ramp Pattern.vi". Then, depending on how many samples you have and the total time desired, you will know how long it should between sending updates. However, you may need to use less samples if communicating with your instrument takes too long. For example, if the calculated wait time is 100ms but it takes 150ms to talk to your instrument, then the entire loop will take about 1.5x longer to execute than expected. By the way, this is just a quick and easy timing mechanism, so feel free to make it more sophisticated if you need something more precise.

[Kyle97330 · Accepted solution]

You should be able to do something like this.  I don't have a piezo controller myself (just servos), so I don't know 100% for sure.

I don't use their built-in control panels, so that first node is the constructor node for the "faceless" control.  You can omit it and wire your .NET container to it instead.

[bellahsin]

Thank you so much! Sorry, that took me a while to realizes I wasn't left alone in the dark. lol

it worked! Thank you SO much!

If I wanted to make it more sophisticated. Do you have any tutorials or websites that I could learn from? Or learn about my options to begin with? Thank you thank you thank you!

[bellahsin]

Thank you so much!!! I was so frustrated about why I couldn't manipulate with the voltage without the .NET front panel. And your way totally helped! THank you so much! With your method and gregoryj's ramp, I was able to do automatic jogging. Thank you thank you thank you!