can you/how to: add additional DAQmx alias devices using MAX

[powertoad]

Is it possible using MAX (measurement and automation explorer) to add alias devices under the Devices->DAQmx?  That is, device names that map to the same hardware?

Thanks,

Todd

[TiTou]

Hi Todd,

I am not sure I understand what you mean by "to add alias device", if you're trying to add a "virtaul DAQ board" (I mean you don't actually have the board in the PC, but you'd like simulate it) then it is possible.

Let me know if you need further help 😉

[Ray.R]

Hi Todd,

It will probably be located in a location similar to the one for I/O devices.

For instance, if you look under (assuming Windows) "C:\VXIPNP\WinNT\NIvisa", you should find a file called "visaconf.ini".

You can set the aliases within this file.  Hoewver, for DAQ devices, it will probably be located in another similar type file. Unfortunately I do not have DAQ's installed on this PC.  The visaconf.ini file does support GPIB cards.  As I said, I don't know if the same file supports DAQ.  However, check it out. 

An example of how the aliases are to be configured is described in the ini file.  Here is an example of mine:  It renames ASRL ports to COM ports.

[VISA-CONFIG]
RefreshFindList = 0
MinAsyncCount = 1024
SharedMemSize = 131072
NumSystemSems = 512
NumProcessSems = 256
AlwaysRefresh = 0
UnloadPassports = 0

[ALIASES]
#Alias0 = "'MyDMM','GPIB0::2::INSTR'"
Alias0 = "'COM1','ASRL1::INSTR'"
Alias1 = "'COM10','ASRL3::INSTR'"
Alias2 = "'COM5','ASRL5::INSTR'"
Alias3 = "'COM6','ASRL6::INSTR'"
Alias4 = "'COM7','ASRL7::INSTR'"
Alias5 = "'COM8','ASRL8::INSTR'"
Alias6 = "'COM9','ASRL9::INSTR'"
Alias7 = "'LPT1','ASRL10::INSTR'"
Alias8 = "'COM11','ASRL11::INSTR'"
Alias9 = "'COM12','ASRL12::INSTR'"
NumAliases = 10

[McKala[DE]]

Hello Todd,

Yes, you can right click on a DAQmx device in MAX and select Rename.  You can type a name and it will replace the default device name "DevX", the name you give it will be the way to address it for DAQmx calls.

Regards,

[powertoad]

Humm..  To restate my question:  For one physical DAQmx device, can you add "multiple" entries that reference the same physical device.  That is:

A single PXI-6143 device is listed twice in MAX, one with the name FOO1 and the other with FOO2, which can be used to reference the same physical board.

[McKala[DE]]

Hi Todd,

No, you can only use one name for each DAQ device.

Regards,

[Ray.R]

You can add simulated DAQmx devices and I'm quite sure I could create aliases... Unfortunatley I don't have MAX on this PC to confirm it.

[JoeFriedchicken]

McKala is correct: real and simulated devices have a one-to-one alias to hardware mapping. Both DAQmx and VISA have this behavior.

One piece of hardware can have only one name in DAQmx and one name in VISA. Those two names can be different, but DAQ hardware isn't really programmed with VISA calls since performance is so limited.