What type of connections do I have to make to the pins of PCI 619 DAQ card? Do I have to give the ground and the Vcc on the pins of the connector myself? What should be the value of the Vcc that I need to give tot he pin?

[Shafin]

I have a PCI 6519 DAQ card. I want to install it on the PC and use it outputs to control a robot. I am having problems with the connections to be made to the connector block that is attached to the cable.

What type of connections do I have to make to the pins of PCI 619 DAQ card? Do I have to give the ground and the Vcc on the pins of the connector myself? What should be the value of the Vcc that I need to give to the pin?

[Paul-D]

Hi there, this is Paul with Applications Engineering at NI.

Are you working with a connector block here?  All of your connections should be to a connection block, and the recommended model for your board is the NI CB-37FH (https://www.ni.com/en-us/support/model.cb-37fh.html)

To understand the pinout of your device, you can either get them out of the product manual page 3-23 or by going into Measurement & Automation Explorer, right clicking your device and choosing 'Device Pinouts'.  The pin numbers on that diagram correspond to the numbers on your connector block, which you can connect to using the screw terminals. 

Per the pinout above, you will find VCC on connection 19 on your connector block, and grounds and commons can be found in a few places.  Vcc is a supplied 5V voltage from the board, you would only need to connect to this if you needed it, you don't have to connect to it.

Good luck with your robot, and let us know if you have any further questions.

[Shafin]

Yes  i am working with a connector block NI CB-37F-LP. I am familiar with the pinouts of my device. I want to know a certain few things.

Firstly, my robot works on ligic level 24V. so i need to know that where should i connect the 24V on the connector block. I only want to use a few outputs of the card. And also where should i connect the ground?

Secondly, i want to set certain outoputs of the card. That is one output at a time. Which software should i use for programming the card? I mean to say that when i set one output of the card, 24V is sent to the robot and it moves. When i set another of the outputs, the robot moves to another position. All the programming for the robot is done separately. The card is ust to control the robot from the PC.

Can you suggest me soome simple way of achieving this task?

Thank you.

[bstreiff]

Page 3-30 in the manual that Paul linked above indicates the pin descriptions. Pin 19 (OUT.COM/VCC) on the 6519 is an input; this is where you would supply your 24V. You should connect your ground to GND (one of pins 10, 28, or 29).

For programming your device, you would use DAQmx 7.2 or later. The latest version is DAQmx 9.3.0, which is a free download. The DAQmx API is then usable from LabVIEW, C, .NET, and a host of other APIs. There is a 'getting started' guide available as well.

[Shafin]

Thank you, that really helped. 

However i would still like to have help with the usage of the card. Are the ground and the 24 V connections only that i need to make to the card? and should i connect the wire that connects the card to the robot controller directly into the output pin of the card?

And foremost, i am having problems with programming the card. I don't know where to begin. Should i start programming in C or should i create a task in DAQmx 9.2.3? And how do i program in C? what are the header files?

[bstreiff]

I'm not sure what the interface on your robot is like, but you'll need to connect 24V and GND to the card, and then for anything you want to control with an output from the card (an input to the robot) you'll want to connect them to a DO line on the card. If there's anything you need to read from the robot (that would be an input to the card) you'd connect that to a DI line on the card.

An (admittedly analog-input centric) primer to the DAQmx C API is available here:

• Using NI-DAQmx in Text Based Programming Environments

The C API includes and libraries can be found at:

• C:\Program Files\National Instruments\NI-DAQ\DAQmx ANSI C Dev

You may also be interested in the C examples, which can be found at:

• C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Documents\National Instruments\NI-DAQ\Examples\DAQmx ANSI C

The Digital\Write Dig Chan\WriteDigChan.c example might be a good starting point for output; Digital\Read Dig Chan\ReadDigChan.c might be a good starting point for input.

[Shafin]

I want to know that the example in C that is given with the software, writing to digital port/lines, wont it help me in my project if i use it as it is? Because i only want to set an output at a respective time, so shouldn't i just use the example code instead of writing my own?

ANd secondly, how can i check if my code is working even if i don't connect the wires to the card? Are the outputs set high even if i don't connect any cables? What sort of values or voltage do i expect to see at the output if i dont make any connections?

And lastly, which of the options should i use for setting the outputs high? The C language compiler or the task created in NIDAQmx?

[bstreiff]

Sure, you can modify the examples.

The outputs should be set low by default; you can use MAX to set the default power-on state if you want to change that (it's under 'Properties').

You should see the voltage level you provided (24V) when a line is high, you should see the voltage level you provided for GND (0V) when a line is low.

As far as which environment you should use: C will be a lot more flexible than just creating and running tasks from MAX, but really it's up to you and what you're most comfortable with.

[Shafin]

I have tried to set the lines high through the MAX task. But the voltage that shows on the lines is far less than the one i have given on the VCC. I am not getting 24Volts on the output which is supplied on pin 19 (VCC). why is this happening? and the outputs keep fluctuating.not very stable.

do i need to attach something to the SHIELD pin which is on the connector block?

[Shafin]

I need to ask one more thing. Do i need to select the physical address on the DAQ to which i would be writing? Is it done through some switches on the DAQ? If yes, then how?