SE 2012 - Tek TDS 2024C - physical channel 1 being captured in IVI Scope Step Channels 1 and 2

[Rainor2020]

Hello,

I have a new installation.  SE2012, TEK 2024C (4 Channel).

IVI Drivers installed, instrument visible and working in MAX.

4 Channels listed and mapped in the Instr Driver Software Modules IVI driver section.

Added Channels 3 and 4 to the Driver Sessions / Virtual Names list - defaulted to only CH 1 and CH 2.

When I load SE2012, add a step for IVI SCOPE... 2 issues.

Issue 1:

Only CH1, CH2, MATH, REFA, REFB appears.  No CH3 or CH4.

Issue 2:

Step Channel 1 aquires signal fine from physical scope Channel 1.

Step Channel 2 acquires signal of physical scope Channel 1 and not 2.

Result is same data is displayed for step CH1 and CH2, plotting signal connected to scope channel 1, and ignores signal on scope's channel 2.

Any ideas where to check the mappings and make CH3 and CH4 available to the step setup?

Included some setup screenshots.

Acquired Signals in screenshot example of issue.

Only input signal is on CH1, set at 1v range.

Same signal is acquired on CH2 (red signal) set at 0.5v range so you can see it.

[Daniel-E]

Hey Rainor2020,

I've been looking into this issue, and I've actually seen the same behavior where I can only select channels 1 and 2 in SignalExpress. I'm not sure why it won't let us select CH3 or CH4. Just to be clear, you are getting real-world measurements for CH1 in SignalExpress and not simulated data, is this correct?

One other thing I was trying on my end was to use one of the LabVIEW examples for the IVI driver. Do you have access to LabVIEW so you could run the examples, or do you only have access to SignalExpress? If you do have LabVIEW, that might be a good step for us to try as well.

Finally, one bit of information that would be helpful to us is the firmware version of the scope. You can usually get this information by sending a *IDN? command to the device. Could you provide us with that firmware version number? Thanks!

[Rainor2020]

Thanks for taking a look at this.

Let's focus on the weird issue of the scope input signal on Channel 1 showing up on acquired channels 1 and 2...  We can figure out the configuration issue about channels 3 and 4 not appearing.

I went ahead and upgraded the TDS 2024B firmware version already, thinking there was an issue with SE2012 and the FW.  No change in behavior.

Output from query:  TEKTRONIX,TDS 2024C,C010676,CF:91.1CT FV:v24.26\n - which is the version I upgraded to, latest from Tek.  Issue same.

Some history here regarding prior versions of SE and Labview.  I had everything working and normal for some projects I had to run last year - no issues with channels or acquisition - all good. See versions below.  I had to remove/uninstall the prior versions and decided to use SE 2012 edition - fresh install and have these problems.

Prior versions which worked fine...

1) I've used SE Tektronics edition 2.51 in the past on same scope/pc with no issues

2) I've used SE 2011 no issues (version as of last year around march 2011).

3) I've used Labview Trial Edition (latest version as of last year) no issue

Issues with SE 2012 edition.

[RainOr]

Follow on information.

1) Installed Labview 2012 Eval Edition.

2) Had to re-run NI-VISA install because Tek TDS2024C stopped being detected in MAX, this fixed the problem for Scope showing up in LabView 2012 (post installation step).

3) Ran LV2012, Did a TOOLS | INSTRUMENTATION | FIND INSTR. DRIVERS...

List showed connected TKDS1k2k installed instrument drivers but when trying to use this the wizard kept crashing - this would be the SE2012 driver. 

4) Did a search for a new TK TDS2024C driver, found it - allowed LV2012 to install it.

5) Wizard completed with the "Start Using Instr Driver" and allowed me to add the Scope object to the pallet. Prior attempts with the TKDS1K2K would hard crash LV.  New driver worked fine.

6) Launched the "TK TDS 2000 Series Aquire Multiple Waveforms.VI" Example and I was able to properly aquire Channels 1, 2, 3, and 4 and no channel mis-match. 

7) Thinking the LV2012 driver may have cleaned up things, I tried using SE2012 but same problem remained - probably because SE2012 is using the TKDS1K2K driver and not the freshly installed working LV2012 driver.

~~~~~ Looks to me to be a SE2012 Driver issue ~~~~~~~

A) Given we're having problems with the tkds1k2k driver, I opened the "Getting Started.vi" example in LV2012 for the tkds1k2k driver (one SE2012 installed) - dragged and dropped from pallet. It acquired Channel 1 fine.

B) I switch the channel to Channel 2 and receive an execution error: 

ERROR 1074126845 occurred at tkds1k2k Read Waveform.VI.  Driver Status: 0xBFFA2003, Max time exceeded before the operation completed.  The scope actually selects channel 2, and attempts to acquire but LV times-out with the error above.

Using same tkds1K2K driver which was installed by SE2012, I selected channels 3 and 4 manually from the "Getting Started.vi" and the scope attempted to acquire on CH3 and CH4 but received the same timeout error above.

Attached is the NI I/O Trace of errors on CH2, 3 and 4.

So it appears the SE2012 installed driver can find channels 1,2,3, and 4, but 2,3 and 4 give Timeout Errors in LV. Still in SE2012, only CH1 can acquire, and CH2 is picking up the input signal connected to CH1 of the scope.

[RainOr]

Part 3 of testing...

Fixed the timeout error - I forgot about the trigger levels which was causing the Timeout Exceeded error (REF: http://digital.ni.com/public.nsf/allkb/820E994660A4B83C862577C7007A3789)  I fixed this by injecting signals into all 4 channels and setting proper trigger/range levels.

I was able to acquire signals in LV2012 for CH1, CH2, CH3 and CH4 with no signal mis-match, using the installed "tkds1k2k" driver that SE2012 installed.

So this indicates to me we may be looking at something within SE2012 above the instrument driver?

Any ideas on what to look at next?

[Daniel-E]

Hey RainOr,

Thanks for all the additional information. I'm not sure why the SignalExpress IVI step doesn't seem to be able to read all four channels. One option here would be to create a LabVIEW VI to do the acquisition and then call that VI from SignalExpress, or you could also just use LabVIEW for your data acquisition and gain all of the additional functionality that LabVIEW would provide.

I will continue to look into the issue to try and determine why SignalExpress is unable to read from channels 3 and 4--in the meantime, please let me know if you come up with any further information that might be helpful!

[RainOr]

RESOLVED ISSUE.

Under the MAX - IVI DRIVERS | DRIVER SESSIONS | <tds2024c driver> | VIRTUAL NAMES...

I deleted all virtual names <--> Channel references and this cleared up all issues. All channels now appear in SE2012 Init-Screens, as well as channel mis-match is resolved.

Attached screenshot is what I did to correct the issue.

Very odd.  The device driver installer defined virtual names for  CH1 = Channel 1, CH2 = Channel 2  by default.  I added 3 and 4 thinking the installer missed the 3rd and 4th channels.  In actuality by deleting all names, the driver functions like it should.