Add-on step types for TestStand?

[Artybear]

I am almost certainly reinventing some wheels with Teststand by creating some basic test types.

For example, I just wrote a custom step type for taking an analog measurement from a DAQmx instrument. Surely someone has done this before, and surely someone will want to do it again. There's nothing proprietary about code that simple, and I'd be happy to give it away if there was a place to post it.

Two questions:

1. Is there an open-source repository for sharing custom step types?

2. Are there add-ons for purchase with canned step types beyond those which come with TestStand?

-Arthur

[~jiggawax~]

This is a very interesting post.  I enjoyed it.

A couple thoughts:

I love the idea of an open-source repository.  I haven't seen one for TestStand but I know they have them for LV.  Of course TS is not a programming language and since everything done in it is so customized then it would be hard to "reuse" other peoples code. 

I know that Averna (averna.com) makes some off the shelf plugins for TestStand but not sure if they are step types or what.  You can check it out.

Regarding your DAQmx example.  Why would you need a custom step type for this when TestStand now has templates???  Also, I think that in most cases people just use a LV module and throw down an Action, Numeric or other and call the native DAQmx VIs.

Thanks,

[RayFarmer]

Hi,

I found this example but it is for TestStand 2, Traditional NI-DAQ (Legacy) and CVI.

You could try the NI Community for a repository for sharing custom step types.

[Artybear]

Hi Jigg, 

I looked at Averna.com, and I don't see any add-ins available on their website. It looks like they offer services mostly. 

It's a good point about TS projects being so varied and customized. However, if custom step types are well architected, as the built-in step types are, then they ought to be reusable by others. 

You're right also that I can accomplish my DAQmx steps easily using an Action step with the LV adapter. My motivation for the custom step is to improve the interface for setting up such an action. In particular, when using an IO channel in TS, I have to manually type in a text string for the DeviceName value, whereas I'd like to choose from a list of global names (e.g. with the global channel list control in LV). I can get this affect by using an Enum in a wrapper VI, which maps to an array of channel constants; but this is fragile if the available channels are changed (e.g. added, removed or renamed in MAX).

Additionally, a custom step type is better than a step template for my purposes, because I can propagate changes in the step type to instances of steps throughout the test. This is incredibly valuable to me during development and debugging. It saves me time when I want to update a step that I've used many times throughout a test sequence. Although TS isn't itself a programming language, I find that I expect it to share certain traits with programming languages to facilitate development, such as type abstractions and a strict enforcement of congruency between types and instances. But I digress....

Thanks for your suggestions.

[Artybear]

Ray, 

Thanks for the link. That's exactly the sort of thing I had in mind, though I'm on the latest versions of TS and DAQmx. I'm curious what features the linked code provides beyond connecting an Action step with a call to DAQ. I may try running it later next week.

Arthur

[Jean-Louis]

I would like to inform you that MESULOG provides free TestStand Step Types :

 > DAQmx steps

 > Serial steps

Regards,

[j_dodek]

Hi Jean-Louis,

last month I was using your DAQmx StepType in a small project.

with TestStand 2016.

Downloaded-Installed- just one hour "HelloWorld" example to figure out how it works

then implemented in the project.

and it is working perfekt!

Thank you for sharing that pice of code.

Best Regards

Juergen