PXI
IVI Soft Front Panels (SFP) No Longer Work for PXI Devices Installed in RT Controllers Running NI Linux RT
The IVI Soft Front Panels (SFP) don't work for NI Linux RT. How do you control IVI PXI devices remotely?
For example, a Windows Host PC is connected to a NI Linux RT Controller via LAN. How do you manually control the IVI PXI devices?
The Soft Front Panels appear to have been replaced by Instrument Studio. How does Instrument Studio control the IVI PXI devices remotely when Instrument Studio can't even detect them?
https://knowledge.ni.com/KnowledgeArticleDetails?id=kA03q000000YSghCAG&%3Bl=en-US&l=en-US
Instrument Studio can't detect the devices. There isn't even an option to show available devices. Instrument Studio just gives you a simulated device when it can't auto-detect anything.
Why would it do this? This is nice for a marketing demo but useless in real life.
I assume the Soft Front Panel was intended to run on a PXI chassis running Windows OS and not NI Linux RT. Is this correct?
I noticed in the IO Trace that the SFP software only looks for device on the localhost.
If this is the case, this seems like an oversight by NI. Especially since the Getting Started Guide still states that the Soft Front Panel (SFP) can be used to control the device.
https://usermanual.wiki/Collections/National-Instruments/374897a.pdf
"The NI-DCPower SFP operates on the PC, to provide additional display capabilities."
This makes sense since this is one of the underlying ideas behind PXI modular instruments, where the display is "software-based." As opposed to "box instruments" (i.e. rack mount DMM's, Oscilloscopes, ...etc.) which have the display integrated into the instrument.
Some may think asking for a software GUI from the vendor is too much however a software GUI is typically standard issue from most instrument vendors (free of charge).
This is based on the concept behind the PXI architecture which can be found here, for those that need a refresher.
Introduction to the PXI Architecture
https://www.ni.com/en/shop/pxi/introduction-to-the-pxi-architecture.html
Software Overview
The PXI software specification defines the software architecture, a key element of the PXI platform. Because PXI is based on a software-defined instrumentation paradigm, PXI does not natively include direct user accessible features, such as a display screen, knobs, and push buttons, on the hardware. All the user accessible features are in software.
@santo_13 wrote:
Unfortunately, it states that it works on a PC that contains the PXI module, by PC it is typically referring to a windows PC.
IMO, your case is not the same, you have a PXI module in a chassis that uses controller running NI Linux RT and that doesn't fit the definition of PC in general terms.
I beg to differ. My use case is the same for all PXI instruments. The implementation is different across various PXI instruments for some unknown reason.
NI didn't screw up the test panels for DAQmx devices. The test panels actually DO access PXI devices on remote targets.
As you can see the DAQmx test panel software in MAX is smart enough to detect PXI devices on remote targets.
As you can see from the IO Trace, the first attempt results in an error "Device identifier is invalid". The software then tries again this time using the IP address of the target. Which is successful.
- Why couldn't this be done for the IVI PXI instruments?
- Why is the implementation different between PXI instruments from the same vendor?
A simple software-based test panel for a PXI instrument is not asking too much. Especially since there used to be one that used to work.
Literally, the guy at the end of the video said
"It sounds like there's no limitations to the software."
"It's capable of all."
"Right?"
Wrong. The software can't detect a power supply card in a PXI chassis.
According to the InstrumentStudio documentation it looks like it only supports Remote RF Signal Analyzer Panel? And you need to install the gRPC server on the target.
https://www.ni.com/docs/en-US/search?bundle=instrumentstudio&q=remote
