Can I communicate between PC and cRIO over serial?

[tir38]

I am new to the compactRIO. I have a lot of experience with the old Fieldpoint hardware. I understand that they operate fundamentally diffeentliy. The RIO has its own processor and can run programs standalone. The Fieldpoint was really just I/O for a PC.

So I am trying to communcate with my RIO (NI cRIO-9074) over serial port. Is this possible like on the Fieldpoint? Or is the serial port on the RIO chassis just for interfacing another serial device? I'd prefer not to use the ethernet port if possible.

[timtamslam · Accepted solution]

Hey tir38!

You can do serial communication between devices using the serial port on the cRIO's chassis. The port is usually referred to as COM1 on the chassis and you can program it using the standard Serial VI's (VISA Read.vi, VISA Write.vi, etc). That being said, you do have to have a VI running on the target to handle this communication. But, when it comes to deploying code to the target and configuring the target through MAX, you have to use an ethernet cable.

Hope this addresses your issue!