smh123
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Posts posted by smh123
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As long as you are using VISA as the abstraction layer, this should work. For an instrument that accepts SCPI commands and supports TCP/IP over ethernet, serial, USB, or GPIB, it should be almost as simple as setting the VISA resource name to the correct communication protocol when you add the GPIB interface. For example, the TCP/IP connection string is
TCPIP[board]::host address[::LAN device name][::INSTR]
and the GPIB is
GPIB[board]::primary address[::GPIB secondary address][::INSTR]
just open the VISA session with the correct type and you should be using that communication channel - everything else (you hope) remains the same. The SCPI instruction set you use should not change. Look at the Agilent 34401 instrument driver that ships w/LabVIEW - once you define the VISA session resource, everything downstream is pretty much the same.
Mark
Mark,
Thank you for your reply. I think I wasn't quite clear here. My PC is the device, not the controller. Being the actual device I want to concentrate on device functionality and not on learning any more communication protocols than I have to. I know I will have to implement a SCPI parser at a minimum. With that said, my questions really are:
1) Do I need to implement anything other than SCPI over (TCP/IP) ethernet or USB to be a viable product in the marketplace?
2) Could I just use a GPIB -to-Ethernet or GPIB-to-USB adapter to connect my device to an existing cluster of devices that are connected via GPIB?
3) Another question: Are you aware of an availableJava language SCPI parser?
I'm just now trying to get up to speed on instrumentation products / protocols, etc. , so if my questions aren't precise forgive me.
Scott
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Hi,
I'm posting this question here because I don't know where else to post it.
I want to implement a new device on my PC to take some measurements. Remote control will be via SCPI so it can play in connected environments. From my research it appears to me that I can just send SCPI text out over the USB comm port or Ethernet. If the device needed to play in a GPIB connected environment then all I would have to do is purchase either a USB - to - GPIB, or Ethernet -to- GPIB connector. Is this a correct assumption on my part? I want to make sure there is not another layer of software that needs to be implemented.
-Scott
Connectivity Requirments for New Instrument
in LAVA Lounge
Posted · Edited by smh123
Knowing that others are designing without RS232/GPIB is the data I was looking for. Thanks.
At this point I'm feeling fairly confident that I won't have to concern myself with any GPIB protocols or even VISA. I think by using one of the adapters I've since run across will take care of all of that - and I sure hope that really does hold true. I will just write my driver to deal with sending / receiving over Ethernet or USB.
Yeah. There aren't too many SCPI commands I need to interpret so it shouldn't be too bad. I thought that all devices HAD to implement ALL the 488.2 commands, but as I look at more devices I see that many actually don't seem to implement the entire 488.2 protocol but rather just what they need. I will take the same approach and just implement what I neeed of the 488.2 protocol. Certainly makes my life easier!
Thanks again for taking the time to respond to my post!
-Scott