Bryan

We used to use Visual SourceSafe and built toolkits for our ATE systems to ensure we were running the latest versions of software (and to perform self-checks). My company tried to force IBM Rational ClearCase on our group but I was able to fight them off and am currently using SVN/TortoiseSVN. Funny though, my company has started setting up SVN databases since so many people balked at ClearCase.

We've simulated a generated 0-150VAC 3-phase source before with a NI-6733 and amplifiers, then shifting the phase of each channel to 0°, 120° and 240° respectively. Due to the number of 3-phase signals we were generating to a high-impedance load for that particular setup, it was more cost effective to do it that way than to purchase many AC voltage sources. I was kind of hoping that there was a similar solution for AC current. Perhaps a similar setup using lower voltage and a step-up transformer, assuming the amplifier has enough wattage for each channel. This time however, we're looking at a low-impedance load where a 0-5A AC Current Transformer would normally be connected in the field. I'd looked at those programmable sources that you cited, but with space and budget limitations, I'm not sure if we could do it. If it's the only way then I'll have to convince the decision makers make some room and cough up some additional dough. The type of simulation we're doing (for a test bed) requires that each line (phase) be able to be individually controlled to test behaviors from desired and undesired phases, frequencies and levels. The Chroma source would do everything we need, but is really overkill for our needs. I've also looked into an equivalent Elgar 3 phase sources as well. Thanks for the ideas so far though, gives me things to look into!

I've been tasked with coming up with a way to simulate the output of a Current Transformer (CT). Basically, a way to generate a 0-5A AC signal that can be controlled via automation to simulate a total of 15 CTs (simulation of five 3-phase lines). The option of using 15 programmable AC Current sources is currently being kicked around, but space and cost may raise some eyebrows here. Not being an EE myself, I'm having difficulty coming up with a solution. Does anyone have any ideas that they could toss my way? Thanks!

There are three postings on Indeed.com for a Test Engineer at Northrop Grumman in Charlottesville, Virginia. I believe the first one may be for a "new grad". Test Engineer I: https://ngc.taleo.net/careersection/ngc_coll/jobdetail.ftl?job=1195044&src=JB-10200 Test Engineer I (experienced): https://ngc.taleo.net/careersection/ngc_pro/jobdetail.ftl?job=1190027&src=JB-10200 Test Engineer II: https://ngc.taleo.net/careersection/ngc_pro/jobdetail.ftl?job=1190176&src=JB-10200

It really depends on your current situation and your future aspirations with LabVIEW in my opinion. In my case, I let my CLD certification expire a couple of years ago. I've been working for the same company for 13 years and having the certification didn't benefit me in any way aside from being able to prove a level of LabVIEW programming competency and provide a sense of achievement for myself. To date, my reputation as the "resident LabVIEW guru" has been more beneficial to me in my job than having my CLD was. Since my company is always 2-3 LabVIEW versions behind the latest releases, I was struggling during re-certification since the exams weigh heavily on having the knowledge of the latest features and functions. It ended up being more of a pain to me than it was worth, so I just let it expire.

I've been on here for quite a long time. I don't normally post much anymore. I used to be pretty active. Normally I find the answers I'm looking for via searching. I don't get to play with newer versions of LabVIEW very often. The company I work for has a tendency to freeze our programs in time and it's rare that we have the opportunity to move to latest and greatest versions of LabVIEW. So, I don't know much about newer features and functions. This has lead me to allow my CLD to expire a few years ago. I wasn't really "using it" and re-certifying normally lead to me having to do a lot of homework on my own time in order to pass the CLD recert. My previous employers were more supportive of me being the resident "LabVIEW Guru". I'm known as such at my current job as well, but as I said, don't get to use and explore the latest features of LabVIEW. I'm able to use LabVIEW sporatically and not as much as I would like to. It's normally feast or famine. Most of the LabVIEW I end up doing are for things that I don't enjoy, like keeping an old LabVIEW 6.1 ATE running NI Test Executive up and running and our current LabVIEW 2010 3rd party Test Executive ATE up and running. My technical background is mostly test engineering, so "Jack of all trades" type of stuff due to our small department. My favorite project is one that I'm actually just winding down on for a sister site of ours. Upgrading a version of test software that was converted up from LabVIEW 5.1 to 2014. It was done before I came on board with the project. The previous developer was a good programmer and I was able to figure things out. I can't go into a lot of detail about it, but I feel it was my most professional undertaking with LabVIEW yet... allowing me to create a professional EXE and installer, graphics, etc. Actual software-engineering stuff that I rarely get to do in pieces let alone in entirety. I've been using LabVIEW since 1999 and have always wanted to go to NI Week, and the LAVA BBQs once they started. The companies I've worked for either never had the budget to send me or something else came up that was priority. The same happened this past year. (There's always next year, right?) I just heard about LabVIEW NXG via THIS form today. I'll have to spend some time looking into it before I form my impressions, but am worried about what I'm reading as it possibly being a replacement for LabVIEW in the future, making my limited knowledge and experience old-hat. But, that may be a knee-jerk reaction at this time.

I checked out the Exaprom toolkit a bit last week. I agree, it has a lot of really neat features. If I can convince the customer for more time and budget for a better PDF solution than just printing the FPs to a virtual printer to maintain the separation of text and images, I may use the Exaprom kit to do so. Thanks!

Thanks for the clarification! It's nice to know more of what's going on under the hood when LabVIEW sends a FP to a printer. I just assumed that it was automatically doing some sort of OCR. Thinking back, when I generated a PDF with a FP as an image, the OCR wasn't very reliable. That should have clued me that something else was going on instead of OCR. This is really the first time I've had to deal with PDFs and LabVIEW together. I've always wanted to mess with the PDF toolkits for LabVIEW, but in the applications I'm dealing with at work, I haven't really had the opportunity to date.

Hey guys/gals. Long time member/infrequent poster here with a PDF challenge to share. I'm working on modifying some old LabVIEW code for an internal customer where reports generated by the compiled EXE are essentially LabVIEW FPs that are printed to a PDF printer. I've been asked to streamline the process by preventing the prompt for filename/location for each report that is "printed", (and there are many) as well auto-generate the PDF filenames. The problem I've run into is that in using the LabVIEW PDF toolkits that I've found on VIPM and NI's website - the FPs are added to the PDF files as images whereas by using a PDF "printer" to print the FP, it appears that an OCR engine is used to break up the FP image into images and searchable text. Having searchable text is what the customer wants to keep if possible. However, with the level of control they're requesting for PDF generation, I'm having a difficult time finding a solution that can be done in LabVIEW and meet all of the requests without changing the report generation scheme from FP "printing" to an actual proper report scheme... which they don't want me to do. I could dig into finding out more details about programmatically controlling their "PDF Printer" from LabVIEW, but I would prefer the application not to be coupled too tightly to a 3rd party application that could change or disappear at any time. (Gov't Contractor). Anyone have any ideas? It would be nice if the available PDF toolkits out there had some sort of OCR function for images if they contained text. If this is too much of a pain to do, I may just have to tell them it will have to be one way or the other. I love LabVIEW programming, so if I can do it I will.

I still use them quite frequently as I've become the code maintainer for an old LV6.1 / Test Executive ATE system that should have been put out to pasture long ago.

The fact that it made me click on this thread link makes me think of Facebook "click-bait" postings. "She sticks a butter knife in an electrical outlet. The result? I'm SO doing this!"

Look to see if the Pickering card is being detected at a different address/location by the processor when the Keithley is ON vs when it's OFF. You should be able to do it either via NI MAX or a soft front panel of some kind.

@stefanusandika: If I remember correctly, you have to design the VI that you want to be a "service" in such a way that it can be safely aborted when Windows stops it. This would prevent proper shutdown of VI execution and cleanup of references, etc. I haven't created a service using the method, so I don't know if there are techniques that can be used to allow safe shutdown of a VI. I was able to find an NI Article on it, but it does involve tinkering with the Windows Registry. @JamesMc86's nssm method does appear to be something worth a look.

I remember seeing an article many moons ago about creating a Windows Service-like LabVIEW application. It involved using some files like "instsrv.exe" and "srvany.exe" (were these the files you're thinking of ShaunR?) or something of that nature. The only service-like interaction that an app using the method could do would be for Windows to start and stop it.

I've been a LAVA member for quite some time. I actually found my current job through this website back in 2004 (and I'm still employed at the same location). I don't post much, but haven't done as much LabVIEW development in my career as I would like to. So I've fallen behind the curve as far as latest tips, tricks, architectures and methods. I haven't even used the Actor Framework yet, (we're still primarily using LV2010). So I haven't been able to lend much on LAVA as far as advice and help for those using all of these newfangled toys and methods or haven't had the need to seek help. This is possibly just a personal preference, but I prefer LAVA to the NI forums, and I rarely use the NI forums. I like how the smaller community feel is so concentrated with LabVIEW expertise. I wish I would be able to spend more time on here and be one of the regulars like I had been on previous forums in which I was a longtime member, but I just haven't had the need or knowledge to do so. That all being said, I may be on here a little more in the coming months as I've been somewhat asked by one of our company locations to modify a neat LabVIEW application. I've already seen the code and the previous developer was definitely someone I would consider to be a LabVIEW Architect. For all I know, they may be a member on here.

Aside from moving your serial configuration VI outside the while loop, you may want to also add a delay to the loop as well. You may be pounding it with data faster than it can handle them (maybe, I've never had the opportunitiy to play with Arduino). Additionally, how is your Arduino set up to handle termination characters? I didn't see anything in the Arduino code specifying anything other than the baud rate. By default, the serial config VI enables a termination character using a line-feed. I don't know what VB serial configuration defaults are.

Job no longer available, please delete.

With the ambiguity of the question, one could even suggest something as simple as a for loop. Without knowing how similar the 25 operations are (they could be the same operation 25 times with the same data type in/output), I'll "second" ShaunR's post and "third" a state machine.

Nevermind...

Glad I was able to help! Actually, I think it was mutual as I think I learned something too. So 255.255.255.255 is only a good address for localhost-type UDP communication then?

I'm not 100% familiar with UDP, but I'm wondering about the IP address your client is writing to and whether you're wanting to write to a multicast address (224.0.0.0 to 239.255.255.255). I don't think that 255.255.255.255 (FFFFFFFF) is a legitimate address to write to for either TCP or UDP. Or, is that just for your example? If you do multicast, both will need to subscribe to that address (in the range cited above) as Read, Write or ReadWrite.

I've been registered on these forums for a long time, but don't get on here much (I hope to change that). Last flurry of posts I made was probably when I got my CLD back in 2008 (I've been maintaining it). I've since taken the classes to help with taking a CLA test (Advanced Architectures and Managing Software Engineering in LabVIEW), but haven't had the opportunity to apply the knowledge I gained from those classes, so I haven't taken the CLA exam yet. I've wanted to go to NI Week since... well... forever, but every year, my company won't approve budget for me to attend.

Are there any prerequisites to obtaining a CPI? I thought you had to be a CLA before being able to be an instructor.

I haven't received my certificate in the mail yet, but just recently found out that I passed the CLD exam, surprisingly with a much higher score than I received on the CLAD exam. Woo hoo! I just thought I would share that with you all. After a couple of years more of experience and studying up, I may try for a CLA certification.

Thanks guys! Hopefully the CLD will come next year once my company has the budget to send me to take it along with the Advanced course. My ambition is to one day have the CLA certification.