Is it possible to access NI-DAQ or NI-DAQmx hardware via NI-VISA remotely?

[ww]

I am using a PCI-System with a PCI-DIO-32HS and a NI-5112 module in it. In "MAX" I can see the modules under the following sections:

    1. NI-DAQmx: "NI PCI-DIO32-HS: Dev1"
    2. PXI-System: "PXI2::8::INSTR (PCI-DIO-32HS)" and "PXI2::6::INSTR (NI5112 for PCI)"
    3. Traditional NI-DAQ: "PCI-DIO-32-HS (Device 1)" and "NI 5112 for PCI (Device 2)"

I started the VISA-server on this machine and included the IP-Address of the machine under Network. If I look there under "Network" -> "10.0.1.149" -> "Devices and Interfaces" I see the 2 modules in the section PXI Systems: "PXI2::8::INSTR (PCI-DIO-32HS)" and "PXI2::6::INSTR (NI5112 for PCI)"


My problem is that I have to access this two cards from a remote systems. After having problems with this I tried to reduce the problem to the machine with the interface cards included. I used the CVI-sample-programm "Getting Started" from "..\CVI8.1\samples\niScope" and tried to examine the behavior with it by modifing the parameter in the field for the resource-name:
   
    1. Using "DAQ::2" works fine
    2. Using "PXI2::6::INSTR" or "PXI2::6" results in an error message in "niScope_init (return: 0xbfff0011)
    3. Using "visa://10.0.1.149/DAQ::2" or "visa://10.0.1.149/PXI2::6::INSTR" results in the same error-message like point 2

Now my question: Is it possible to access NI-DAQ or NI-DAQmx hardware via NI-VISA remotly even if I can't see the hardware over the network? Which possibilities do I have to access the remote system?


Thanks in advance
Willi

[SFK]

I am sorry to say that the NI-5112 (as well as the 5911) scope cards do not support Remote Device Access. You can add them as a remote device using standard VISA functionality, but VISA cannot access the NI-Scope driver necessary to communicate with these cards.

Remote-VISA currently only supports traditional DAQ function calls, which is why you can access you Highspeed-DIO card through DAQ::2.

To establish communications, you therefore may want to implement a small application on your remote PC which handles the communiation to the cards and the control parameter and measurement data exchange to your host application using TCP/IP, Shared Variables or DataSocket.

Best regards,
Sebastian

[pankaj]

Willi,

NI-VISA and NI-Daq (or NI-DAQmx) are totally unrelated. You can use NI-VISA to do register level communication with PCI (or PXI) daq cards which are bound to NI-DAQmx by treating them as PXI resources. You can do the same thing either locally or remotely (through a VISA server). To understand what you can do on a PXI card with NI-VISA, you might want to select the PXI2::6::INSTR that shows up under PXI System and press 'Open VISA Test Panel'. From the options you will see on the panel, you will get an idea of the type of stuff you can do with it.

Pankaj

[kkwong]

I got similar goal as Willi did.  I realized that we cannot access the PXI cards through VISA server.  Has anyone written an application as a PXI card server to handle the communcations from another PC.

Also, any NI PXI card that can be accessed through VISA server? Or none?  We just need to know that before we buy any of the PXI card.