How do I deploy my project on a touch panel?

[k-efrc]

Hello all,

I'm fairly new LabView (3 months of experience) and I'm trying to deploy my project on to the NI-TPC-2206. I have attached a screenshot of my project tree.

I have three VIs, two of which are under my cRIO-9014 tree and the third running on my host PC. At this stage only Mod 1 (NI-9205) is being used.

I wish to build an executable that will allow me to run my project through 'cRIO_HOST.vi' from the touch panel instead of the host PC I have right now. I searched around on the forums but failed to find anything helpful.

Any assistance would be greatly appreciated. Thank you.

- Kashif

p.s: Apologies if I'm posting this under the wrong sub-forum topic! 

[Kareem_W.]

Hi Kashif,

I'm just curious whether or not you have the LabVIEW Touch Panel Module installed on your system? I would also check to make sure that the TPC is configured properly: http://zone.ni.com/devzone/cda/tut/p/id/6021.

[k-efrc]

Hi Kareem, thank you for your reply,

I do have the Touch Panel Module installed and I also ran through an example that deploys a sample VI (Touch Panel Tutorial.vi) successfully. Prior to deploying it, I had verified connectivity by running the TPC Service on the 2206 and testing my connection. 

I suppose what I'm trying to get a handle on is how my cRIO would fit into the structure of the touch panel project.

I should probably also point out that to run my current cRIO project I have to first execute a VI that's on the cRIO chassis and then execute my host vi. I believe I'd probably have to change that to where my host vi runs the chassis vi which in turn runs the FPGA vi before being able to deploy it to the TPC. Would that be true?

Kashif 

[k-efrc]

Oh and I'm running LabView 2010 Professional if that helps.

[Kareem_W.]

To deploy to a touch panel, you have to right-click on the project name (at the top of the project) >> Select New >> Targets and Devices >> Touch Panel >> Find your device. Once your device shows up in the project, move your host VI under the touch panel instead of under My Computer.

[k-efrc]

Hello Kareem,

Thanks for the help. Would I have to move my 'Host Variables.lvlib' under the TPC as well? How would I proceed to make an executable that would bring up my cRIO_HOST.vi and connect to my cRIO as well. I've gone through several NI help guides on creating real-time startup applications, but I'm not sure if that's what I should do. 

Also, how would my executable know to "connect" to the cRIO. Right now the only way my setup works is if I manually connect to it by right clicking on it.

Once again, thanks for helping

Kashif

[k-efrc]

Hello Kareem,

Thanks for the help. Would I have to move my 'Host Variables.lvlib' under the TPC as well? How would I proceed to make an executable that would bring up my cRIO_HOST.vi and connect to my cRIO as well. I've gone through several NI help guides on creating real-time startup applications, but I'm not sure if that's what I should do. 

Also, how would my executable know to "connect" to the cRIO. Right now the only way my setup works is if I manually connect to it by right clicking on it.

I attempted to create an executable by creating a build spec under my host device (touch panel). I included the cRIO_HOST.vi as the startup VI and included the my variables as well. However, when deployed and executed on the touch panel I receive an error saying that windows 'encountered an error' while attempting to run it. 

Once again, thanks for helping

Kashif

[Roryriffic]

Hi Kashif,

You could host your variables on either your real-time controller (cRIO) or on the TPC-2206.  To use shared variables in general, you will need support for shared variables installed on the cRIO and TPC. This is included by default with the normal RIO software (not minimal version), and on the touch panel, you should install the LabVIEW Run-Time Engine to get the Shared Variable Engine support.  It sounds like you've probably done this already, however.

Your TPC knows to connect to the cRIO by ways of magic... Ha just kidding.. bad joke, I know - I'm still waiting for the coffee to kick in 🙂 .  If you have all of your VI's and shared variables, etc., listed in your Project under both of those targets, respectively, then this done automatically and you shouldn't have to worry about that.  The executables you create for both the cRIO controller and touch panel should have the top level VI specified for each.  So, you shouldn't include "cRIO_HOST.vi" as the top level vi in your touch panel executable.  You would need to have "cRIO_Host.vi" as the startup vi in your real-time executable, and your main touch panel VI as the top level vi in your TPC executable. Make sense?

[k-efrc]

Hey Rory,

Thanks for the info. I'll put together the structure for my project and post a screen shot to confirm if I understood your instructions. I use my cRIO_Host.vi on my PC as my instrument display. So by moving that vi on to the cRIO as well, would I then I just create a new touch panel VI with the duplicate code from my cRIO_host.vi ?

I'm a little confused as to why I would do that. Shouldn't I just eliminate cRIO_Host altogether and recreate as a touch panel VI?

Before your reply I was working on trying to get my developement PC to run to an executable that would let me connect to the RIO. (The touch panel wasn't even in the picture. I figured I'd back up and start with something simpler).

I did move my variables on to the RIO and I created two applications. A startup real-time application for the RIO and an executable for my PC. I've attached a screenshot of what I did to get it working. 

I'll check back in after attempting to setup my project for the touch panel! 

[Kareem_W.]

Hi Kashif,

It looks like you've made great progress using the other forum post. We like to limit the issues to one forum location, so I would like to suggest that we stop replying to this one and limit the responses to the other. Thanks.