cRIO serial communication: Communicating over RS232 between an engine and the cRIO

[cujetbuff]

Hello,

I am really new to using the cRIO and labview code in general. The problem that I am trying to code for is that I want to pull data off of a mini jet engine that I am using and log it through the RIO. I was provided with codecs by the engine company so I can communicate with the engines ECU, however, I have no experience with using read/write operations on the cRIO. Can someone tell me what vi's I should use? or do i need to make my own?

Thanks.

[Richard_Smith]

Hi,

If you need to communicate with any device through RS-232 connection there are many examples in the community and the LabVIEW help that you can use as a start point, and that will be easy to modify in order to adapt to your necessities. With cRIO you can use either the VISA API (Help>> Hardware Input and Output >> VISA) that is supported under Real-Time OS or create a FPGA VI (http://zone.ni.com/devzone/cda/epd/p/id/2164).

You might need to know the protocol used by the ECU in order to send the proper commands and read the values from the ECU. Generally the commands and bus requirements are included in the documentation

provided by the vendor.

There is also the possibility to run DLLs on Real-Time targets. However, a compatibility check is required. It will be interesting to know more about the codecs you have mentioned. If could let us know the model of the engine or a link to the documentation we will be able to provide you more specific recommendations.

Regards,

Richard.

[cujetbuff]

For some more info about the ECU and engine that I am connecting to:

JetCat p200-SX turbine with a V6.0 ECU

The baud rate of the ECU is between 2400 and 38400 with 9600 as default

8 data bits

no parity bit 

1 stop bit

it also has a default slave address of 1, as I want the cRIO to be the master

the data is formated as  address, Command Code, parameterlist <CR>

The controller then responds with address, "HS", RETCode, Parameterlist

The command I want to use is RAC, for read actual values, which will return in the parameter list the RPM of the turbine, the engine gas temperature, the pump voltage, the turbine state and the throttle position in percentage all seperated by commas.