keithley 2401

[Photon999]

Thanks Gerd, I have done that in the past, it is a matter of time - it is typically much quicker just to use a driver the supplier provides...

[GerdW]

Hi Photon,

"typically much quicker just to use a driver the supplier provides"

Drivers provided by supplier typically suck in one way or the other. So most of the time I study them to adapt them to my own framework/standards...

[Photon999]

As an update to all who may consider purchasing the Keithley 2401; it looks great on paper but it is NOT supported by the 24XX LabView driver that drives all its (more expensive) Keithley brothers, e.g. 2400, 2410, 2420, 2430 and 2440.  I have talked to a Keithley applications engineer, who was initially surprized to hear it, then after he researched it within Keithley he agreed that it is correct.  That is why the LabView driver is not listed as supported on their website for the 2401.  Ignore posters who say 'it is basically the same instrument and so it should work', but do not actually have the instrument and so are just talking...

As for writing my own driver?  My time is worth too much to spend writing a driver for a basic instrument - it would be more cost effective for me to have purchased the 2400 unit for $1000 more just to be able to control it correctly with LabView!!!

[billko]

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@Photon999 wrote:

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As for writing my own driver?  My time is worth too much to spend writing a driver for a basic instrument - it would be more cost effective for me to have purchased the 2400 unit for $1000 more just to be able to control it correctly with LabView!!!

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Factory-supplied drivers are made to be as generic as possible, and never seem to do exactly what you need.  In the end, writing your own little suite of commands that you use most often will save you tons of heartache down the road.

It has been my experience that the vast majority of factory-supplied LabVIEW drivers are simply engineering tools developed by some engineer with little understanding of the way LabVIEW works, and so are of little value.  (Sometimes they don't even work!)  Normally i just grab the programmer's guide and get to work without even looking for LabVIEW drivers.

IMHO - if you're putting together a test rack and it's your job to supply the software, it goes without saying that part of your job is to write drivers for your test equipment.

[acolbourn]

It's actually not too bad to write your own driver for.  Once you write a script to send text commands and get communication working a lot of the functions are very straightforward following the manual.  If you need help let me know, struggled with the same thing for a while and know most of the tricks now.  

[carhoades]

Hi acolbourn, I am working on getting a program up and running for a keithely 2401 as well and see that I am running into a lot of the same errors that you have described on here.  I was wondering if you could get me pointed in the right direction. The main things that I would like to accomplish is to do a linear sweep and then read the data that was stored from that sweep. I am able to perform a sweep with my program but it always freezes at the end of it, and I haven't quite figured out how to recall the stored data of the sweep either.  Thanks!

[Mockingbird]

Hi Carhoades,

it looks like you're posting on a thread that's a bit older. I would encourage you to post in a new thread and reference this one, that way you can get more eyes to look at it. Hopefully acolbourn will be able to help you out, but it's also worth a try to PM-him on this issue.