How do I generate a pulse train with IMAQ Vision 6.0 in Visual Basic?

[Jason Pickering]

Hello there gurus! I am trying to use IMAQ Vision 6.0 and Visual Basic to generate an external pulse train on my PCI-1408 card. I think I understand more or less how to initialize the signal. I have seen an example in CVI, and the generation of signals seems trivial, however, I don't understand how to do it in VisualBasic. Can any body help me out with this one? The documentation is exceedingly vague in this regard and several of the examples that I have are wrong. 😞

Any pointers would be most appreciated.

Kind regards,
Jason Pickering
jasonp@gintic.gov.sg

[Jack_A.]

Jason -

I have attached a Word document which describes how to configure triggers and generate pulses in VB. However, the PCI-1408 does not support pulse generation. The PCI-1409 is analog frame grabber which does support pulse generation. Here is a link to the product page for the PCI-1409 if you are interested:

http://sine.ni.com/apps/we/nioc.vp?cid=1294〈=US

Jack Arnold
Application Engineer
National Instruments

[Jason Pickering]

Thanks for the documents. I finally managed to figure it out after considering the "Triggering" examples. 🙂 Just for to be clear though, the 1408 is capable of some very basic signal generation, like the switching of polarity on a given even (Acquisition Start, Frame Start, etc.). I guess this doesn't really qualify as a pulse train, but for my purposes it is actually sufficient. Thanks anyway for your help!

[Jack_A.]

Yes, you can drive internal board signals such as Acq. Start and Frame Start on the trigger line with the PCI-1408. You can also have all the triggering functionality of the board. The only feature not available is the pulse train generation.

Hope this helps.

Jack Arnold
Application Engineer
National Instruments