ivi-c

[mdamico]

Has anybody ever communicated with an Agilent N6030A Arbitrary Waveform Generator using LabVIEW?  We do not have the MXI-4 set up, but rather the PXI PC (8186) controlling the Arb.  The N6030A uses the IVI-C drivers with lengthy command lines.  Do I have to use the VISA read/write vi's to enter the IVI-C command line strings?  Or what functions are available to set this up?  There is not much documentation on this unless it is in an post somewhere.  So I would settle right now for just being able to understand how the command lines work ~ perhaps successfully pass an INIT command.  SCPI commands are easy and I've had a lot of success using VISA read/write functions to control other test equipment.  But these are not SCPI, they are IVI-C commands that have arguments, etc. 

Has anybody ever had success talking to the PXI based Agilent QArb that could get me started? 

Thanks...

Mike 

[Dennis_Knutson]

Are you trying to interface to the driver with the Call Library Function Node? If you are, then you're making it much harder on yourself. You can convert an IVI-C driver to a LabVIEW driver. For LabVIEW versions 7.1 or earlier, you go to Tools>Instrumentation>Import CVI Instrument Driver. For 8.x, get the new Import Wizard. What the conversion actually does is put a LabVIEW wrapper around all of those function calls in the dll for you. The VIs will look just like all of the other native LabVIEW instrument driver functions. In other words, you will have an init VI that you pass a logical name to and options for an id query and reset. I have not done any of this will this particular instrument though.

[mdamico]

Thanks for your reply.

I have used your suggestion and downloaded the Import Wizard.  Upon running the wizard, the first thing it asks for is the instrument driver (.fp) function panel file.  I see no function panel file amongst the instrument drivers.  Nor any of the (.sub) files.  I've checked the instrument download site and saw nothing that would satisfy this requirement.  Should the drivers have the (.fp) and (.sub) files?  Are you familiar with these types of files?

Thanks.

[Dennis_Knutson]

All IVI-C drivers are supposed to install to the VXIpnp\WinNT\ folder. There should be a folder there with your instrument name and in that folder should be the .fp file. I think the .sub file is optional but if it exists, it would be in the same folder. The dll that is required should be in the VXIpnp\WinNT\Bin folder.