How can I control pneumatic actuators with DAQ-NI with QuickBasic?

[SoniAustralia]

I have to modify an existing application, written in QuickBasic, with which I want to control two Watson Smith electric-pneumatic actuators (to be controlled) and acquire signals from various (displacements and pressure) transducers. The DAQ in by National Instruments. The application should work in DOS, I assume (or also on Windows?). How/is this compatible? Is there a book/manual I can refer? I can handle the language, but I have no idea on the syntax, procedures, furhter hardwares needed to 'control' devices. Thank you!!

[AdnanZ]

Can you rephrase your question? How exactly is your hardware setup and what kind of software are you using? And, what OS do you want to work this on?

[SoniAustralia]

The hardware has not been setup yet. 

This is the sketch. The three pressure circuits will be supplied by a compressor of 7 bar.  

Two of them will then be controlled by the Watson Smith actuators.

The last circuit will be operated manually and measured by a pressure transducer.

The application is a home-made one, written in Quickbasic and designed for 'Datascan' as a datalogger.

The new datalogger (?) is from NI.

Here is a list of the ones which we have:

http://sine.ni.com/nips/cds/view/p/lang/en/nid/202545 http://sine.ni.com/nips/cds/view/p/lang/en/nid/203423 http://sine.ni.com/nips/cds/view/p/lang/en/nid/202571 http://sine.ni.com/nips/cds/view/p/lang/en/nid/202570 

It seems that I need to buy this other (among NI products) for controlling the equipments:

https://www.ni.com/en-us/shop/model/ni-9263.html

I have no experience at all on how to communicate with devices; this is probably the reason why I cannot be clearer.

I would know how to do operations, print, plot on screen or on file, but not how to do the same with devices external to the pc.

I assume there are (at least) special keywords to locate the channels..?

Thank you,

Sonia

[SoniAustralia]

I forgot:

other three LVDTs should be acquired by the DAQ and read by the aplication.

Cheers,

Sonia

[Dennis_Knutson]

You might want to provide some information that is not on a site that requires a login and password.

And if you are using new NI hardware, why would you want to use something as old as Quickbasic and DOS. I don't think you even have support for that with any of the current NI DAQ products. 

[SoniAustralia]

Obvious: because I am forced to use Ni DAQ products, which in turn seem to force to use Labview.

I still prefer 'written' languages, although 'old' (maybe like me), better than graphical ones.

Why new products are not made compatible with existing intruments?

Besides, could I run my Quickbasic application with Eclipse, which works in Windows?

I am attaching some DAQ files I downloaded.

Cheers

Sonia

[AdnanZ]

You won't be able to interface with DAQmx (the driver used to communicate with NI-DAQ devices) directly. You will need to write an application in a supported environment (like C++, C, LabVIEW etc), create a DLL and then, possibly, interface with that DLL. So, the answer to your question is to use a supported environment to create the application, and then, interface with that application in QuickBasic, if that's possible.

[SoniAustralia]

Thank you, Adnan.

I will try this way.

Cheers

Sonia