Two PCs connected to a single PXI chassis

[Serge67]

I couldn't find anything on this topic.

So, we have a PXI Chassis with some instrumentation sitting in the lab and we would like to be able to access the PXI Chassis from two separate PCs, one a the time. Is it possible to have two control modules in the PXI for accessing them exclusively from one of the two PCs?

The option of switching the MXI card cable from one PC to another does not seem to be very practical, although guaranteed to work, yet making all connections and then just choosing which PC is a host would be more elegant solution if it is possible.

[ZYOng]

If the chassis has a controller running RTOS, you can connect it from more than one host PC, one at a time.

[santo_13]

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@Serge67 wrote:

I couldn't find anything on this topic.

So, we have a PXI Chassis with some instrumentation sitting in the lab and we would like to be able to access the PXI Chassis from two separate PCs, one a the time. Is it possible to have two control modules in the PXI for accessing them exclusively from one of the two PCs?

The option of switching the MXI card cable from one PC to another does not seem to be very practical, although guaranteed to work, yet making all connections and then just choosing which PC is a host would be more elegant solution if it is possible.

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If that is going to be mutually exclusive, why not use the same PC?

[Serge67]

The chassis does not have a controller, it uses MXI card for remote control from PC. I am wondering if two MXI cards can coexist in the chassis and be accessed on one at the time basis

[Serge67]

Using a single PC instead of two was one of my initial thoughts. However, when you deal with various test setups in the lab sometimes it is not easy consolidating essentially two workstations: one with a set of instrumentation and another connected to a different set of devices. Two people can work in parallel running different tests and once in a while one of the two wants to have access to shared PXI.

[Robert__R]

Hi Serge67,

There's only 1 slot that can be used to control a chassis, so the controller-slot card would need to be capable of multiple upstream links, which isn't generally the case.

The Thunderbolt MXI card (PXIe-8301) can use either port as the host link. But the first host to power up and connect to it "wins". I don't know how to switch hosts from SW if the wrong PC has claimed it (though the cables are easy to unplug).

- Robert

[crossrulz · Accepted solution]

My understanding on PXI is that you only have 1 slot that can control the chassis: the controller slot, typically slot 1.  This is where your MXI card is plugged in.

So the simple answer here is that you cannot have two controllers on the chassis.  Your simplest method is to swap the MXI cables.  The next best idea would be to put a real controller into the chassis and create an application that communicates with your test computers to control the instruments.  This is far from a simple task.