simultaneous execution of time critical parts(one is the drive connected to serial port and the other is the DAQ) in a vi

[hema]

We are developing a software for a cyclic spin test using Drive.
The drive software consists of a profiler part which should be running in a 50ms
interval.(every 50msec th operation should happen).
This Part uses a DAQ card.
To get some digital status we use serial link .
The status update can be every 250msec.
The problem is that the status read takes a minimum of 70msec to complete
(The serial protocol for the drive specifies some delay b/w operation).
We would like to have the status without affecting the 50msec operation.
How can we do this?
We run Labview 6.0 on Windows2000.

[shoneill]

I`m not sure how the serial VIs affect the mutithreading of the LabVIEW environment, but setting LabVIEW to run multithreaded and running the two operations independent of each other (in two while loops without data-dependency between them) might do it. You will find the option for multithreading under "options". Bear in mind that a re-start of LabVIEW is necessary before the changes come into effect.

I would time-stamp the reply of the drive with the time of the request, not after receiving the data.

Hope this helps

Shane