labview, mac and a spectrum analyzer.

[Soliton]

Hello All,
Am a newbie to labview and i am having to interface an Agilent
Spectrum Analyzer (ESA-L 4408B to be precise) to a Mac over GPIB. My basic
intention right now is to get the trace data out of the analyzer.
Unfortunately, neither Agilent nor National Instrument provides the basic
instrument drivers for this instrument for the Mac environment. Being a
newbie too, I am having some trouble using the basic GPIB VI's to get the
trace data out of this instrument. Probably I am missing something obvious
but simply trying to use GPIB READ would give me errors like "Query
Unterminated" from the instrument.

Could someone refer me to some book or online material where I can read up
stuff to figure out how to get things goi
ng in this situation ?

Thanks a lot in advance !

S.

[AIR]

Hi,

Have you tried to change the 'mode' option?

For GPIB Write the options for mode are:

mode indicates how to terminate the GPIB Write.
0 Send EOI with the last character of the string.
1 Append CR to the string and send EOI with CR.
2 Append LF to the string and send EOI with LF.
3 Append CR LF to the string and send EOI with LF.
4 Append CR to the string but do not send EOI.
5 Append LF to the string but do not send EOI.
6 Append CR LF to the string but do not send EOI.
7 Do not send EOI.

To get the mode options for each GPIB vi, click 'click here for more help'
in the help, and 'browse' to the vi.

The 'mode' should correspond to what the device is expecting....

Regards,

Wiebe



"Soliton" wrote in message news:a551b4$u2$1@joe.rice.edu...
> Hell
o All,
> Am a newbie to labview and i am having to interface an Agilent
> Spectrum Analyzer (ESA-L 4408B to be precise) to a Mac over GPIB. My basic
> intention right now is to get the trace data out of the analyzer.
> Unfortunately, neither Agilent nor National Instrument provides the basic
> instrument drivers for this instrument for the Mac environment. Being a
> newbie too, I am having some trouble using the basic GPIB VI's to get the
> trace data out of this instrument. Probably I am missing something obvious
> but simply trying to use GPIB READ would give me errors like "Query
> Unterminated" from the instrument.
>
> Could someone refer me to some book or online material where I can read up
> stuff to figure out how to get things going in this situation ?
>
> Thanks a lot in advance !
>
> S.
>
>

[Soliton]

Yes I did set the mode to 1 and 2 and tried but to no avail.... 😞

"AIR" wrote in message news:a553uk$gju$1@news1.xs4all.nl...
> Hi,
>
> Have you tried to change the 'mode' option?
>

[Kama]

Actually, I have not used GPIB write but am just trying to read from
the instrument. So I have given in a GPIB read command (with GPIB
initialize and GPIB clear) but the vi stops after a few seconds giving
errors and the analyzer screen reports "Query unterminated". My
intention is just to get the trace data from the analyzer and like I
said: there is no instrument library available for this device for the
Mac: thats the reason I am giving GPIB read etc.

Can anyone please show a way out of this problem or suggest references
I can look up ?

Thanks !
sol.



"AIR" wrote in message news:...
> Hi,
>



> Have you tried to change the 'mode' option?
>
> For GPIB Write the options for mode are:
>
> mode indicates how to terminate the GPIB Write.
> 0 Send EOI with the last character of the string.
> 1 Append CR to the string and send EOI with CR.
> 2 Append LF to the string and send EOI with LF.
> 3 Append CR LF to the string and send EOI with LF.
> 4 Append CR to the string but do not send EOI.
> 5 Append LF to the string but do not send EOI.
> 6 Append CR LF to the string but do not send EOI.
> 7 Do not send EOI.
>
> To get the mode options for each GPIB vi, click 'click here for more help'
> in the help, and 'browse' to the vi.
>
> The 'mode' should correspond to what the device is expecting....
>
> Regards,
>
> Wiebe
>
>
>
> "Soliton" wrote in message news:a551b4$u2$1@joe.rice.edu...
> > Hello All,
> > Am a newbie to labview and i am having to interface an Agilent
> > Spectrum Analyzer (ESA-L 4408B to be precise) to a Mac over GPIB. My basic
> > intention right now is to get the trace data out of the analyzer.
> > Unfortunately, neither Agilent nor National Instrument provides the basic
> > instrument drivers for this instrument for the Mac environment. Being a
> > newbie too, I am having some trouble using the basic GPIB VI's to get the
> > trace data out of this instrument. Probably I am missing something obvious
> > but simply trying to use GPIB READ would give me errors like "Query
> > Unterminated" from the instrument.
> >
> > Could someone refer me to some book or online material where I can read up
> > stuff to figure out how to get things going in this situation ?
> >
> > Thanks a lot in advance !
> >
> > S.
> >
> >

[Dennis_Knutson]

You have to do a GPIB or VISA write before you can read any data back. You should refer to the instrument's programming manual for the proper command to transfer trace data to the output buffer. As a test, try writing the string IDN? and then doing a read. This is usually the first thing to try with GPIB communication and once you get this to work, you can try more complex queries. It sounds like you need a basic understanding of GPIB communication. There's a small GPIB tutorial in the NI catalog. You might be able to find it on NI's web site or Agilent's (they were the inventors of the thing).

[AIR]

Often it's IDN? but it could be:

*ID
*IDN
ID?
*IDN?

or something similar. To be sure, you need the intrument's manual. But the
test might not always work.
"Dennis Knutson" wrote in message
news:506500000005000000BF610000-1012609683000@exchange.ni.com...
> You have to do a GPIB or VISA write before you can read any data back.
> You should refer to the instrument's programming manual for the proper
> command to transfer trace data to the output buffer. As a test, try
> writing the string IDN? and then doing a read. This is usually the
> first thing to try with GPIB communication and once you get this to
> work, you can try more complex queries. It sounds like you need a
> basic understanding of GPIB communication. There's a small GP
IB
> tutorial in the NI catalog. You might be able to find it on NI's web
> site or Agilent's (they were the inventors of the thing).

[LQ]

I have never used Agilent instruments but I think they are all pretty much
the same in terms of GPIB communication (standardized). In addition to
message from AIR about termination of command string there are few things
may take a lead to your solution:
1. Find out the address of this device from the device itself.
2. Get the Programmer Mannual for this equipment,
3. Before you want to extract a trace you have to set up device such that
output of the trace corresponds to your graph/plot. If the mannual has some
section called TRACE PROCESSING and OUTPUT FORMAT CONTROL, this is all you
need to know.
4. If you have MAX (Measurement & Automation Explorer), try some commands
from the Programmer Mannual with this software.
5. Download some example drivers from NI website and learn from it.

Hope this help,
Nam.
Kama wrote in message
news:26aedfe3.0202221317.39d0a716@posting.google.com...
> Actually, I have not used GPIB write but am just trying to read from
> the instrument. So I have given in a GPIB read command (with GPIB
> initialize and GPIB clear) but the vi stops after a few seconds giving
> errors and the analyzer screen reports "Query unterminated". My
> intention is just to get the trace data from the analyzer and like I
> said: there is no instrument library available for this device for the
> Mac: thats the reason I am giving GPIB read etc.
>
> Can anyone please show a way out of this problem or suggest references
> I can look up ?
>
> Thanks !
> sol.
>
>
>
> "AIR" wrote in message news:...
> > Hi,
> >
>
>
>
> > Have you tried to change the 'mode' option?
> >
> > For GPIB Write the options for mode are:
> >
> > mode indicates how to terminate the GPIB Write.
> > 0 Send EOI with the last character of the string.
> > 1 Append CR to the string and send EOI with CR.
> > 2 Append LF to the string and send EOI with LF.
> > 3 Append CR LF to the string and send EOI with LF.
> > 4 Append CR to the string but do not send EOI.
> > 5 Append LF to the string but do not send EOI.
> > 6 Append CR LF to the string but do not send EOI.
> > 7 Do not send EOI.
> >
> > To get the mode options for each GPIB vi, click 'click here for more
help'
> > in the help, and 'browse' to the vi.
> >
> > The 'mode' should correspond to what the device is expecting....
> >
> > Regards,
> >
> > Wiebe
> >
> >
> >
> > "Soliton" wrote in message
news:a551b4$u2$1@joe.rice.edu...
> > > Hello All,
> > > Am a newbie to labview and i am having to interface an
Agilent
> > > Spectrum Analyzer (ESA-L 4408B to be precise) to a Mac over GPIB. My
basic
> > > intention right now is to get the trace data out of the analyzer.
> > > Unfortunately, neither Agilent nor National Instrument provides the
basic
> > > instrument drivers for this instrument for the Mac environment. Being
a
> > > newbie too, I am having some trouble using the basic GPIB VI's to get
the
> > > trace data out of this instrument. Probably I am missing something
obvious
> > > but simply trying to use GPIB READ would give me errors like "Query
> > > Unterminated" from the instrument.
> > >
> > > Could someone refer me to some book or online material where I can
read up
> > > stuff to figure out how to get things going in this situation ?
> > >
> > > Thanks a lot in advance !
> > >
> > > S.
> > >
> > >

[Sastry V.]

Hi,
There is a bunch of infromation on GPIB along with example programs that I would strongly recommend you to take a look at. I am providing the link below:
GPIB

This also gives an idea about the development of instrument drivers in the extreme case.

I could find an instrument driver link for you. Ofcourse it is for windows environment.
Driver

Hope it helps.
Sastry

[Soliton]

Thanks folks for all the help provided. Actually, the fact that Agilent
doesnt provide instrument drivers for my device in the Mac environment made
me nervous.
Hopefully, I will be able to figure out my way now.
Thanks again.