reading an instrument's parallel output

[dkellogg]

I am totally new to LabView and just want to make sure that I can actually do what's been asked of me.  We have an old instrument (an autotitrator) that only outputs data to a parallel printer.  All of our old inkjet printers are dying and we'd like to have an electronic copy of the output data as well.  The titrator uses a centronics (round) - printer parallel cable. 

I found the pinout diagram to the centronics plug, so I am assuming that this can be done with labview?

Just some pointers for the right direction would be greatly appreciated.

[Christian Mergl]

Hi,

Open the LabVIEW Example Finder and search for parallel port, there should be some examples.

Christian

[dkellogg]

Thanks, I did find those, but what I want to do is essentially put LabView in place of the printer, and read the data coming out of the printer cable of the instrument, capturing what comes out of the printer port of the instrument (which isn't a pc), and transferring it into some sort of useable data.

[AnalogKid2DigitalMan]

Here is an off-the-shelf solution, not LabVIEW 😞

-AK2DM

[dkellogg]

AK2DM, I don't see anything?

[AnalogKid2DigitalMan]

Sorry:

http://www.photologic.ca/cap.html

-AK2DM

[Christian Mergl]

In LabVIEW you have just PortIn.vi and PortOut.vi to communicate with the parallel port.

@AnalogKid: Pretty nice suggestion!

[dkellogg]

Well, that is indeed a solution!  Thanks for posting!  I figured I'd have to purchase some sort of converter!

[Nicholas_Herrick]

You just saved me a lot of work! Kudos.

[Dennis_Knutson]

Those functions are no longer supported or available on later versions of LabVIEW and os's. Use VISA.