jacobson

Our systems engineering group has a table where they keep track of projects/toolkits, error code range assigned, and the project owner. When you need custom error codes for your project you will get "assigned" the next chunk of 50 error code values on the list. These error codes are now yours to do with as you please. I don't have to manage this list so I can't speak to the drawbacks there but from the perspective of someone who needs to use the system it's pretty nice. I sent a message to someone asking what error codes I should be using and they sent me a link to the internal list, added my name, and told me what error codes to use.

I don't know if there is a way to change what instance of the VI opens but you should be able to use the menu View > Browse Relationships > Reentrant Items to open up any instance of the reentrant VI. It could be a version difference (I haven't used 2017 much) but maybe try checking to see if the VIs you are trying to debug are set to shared clone or preallocated.

As always, thank you for posting all the videos you took.

I'd be interested in going, when do people normally get there?

I haven't tried this myself but I bet you could use one of the App Builder functions in vi.lib to get the build number of the build specification and add that as well

Excited for the best event at NIWeek. Are you going to be able to top Matt and Norm's Yo LabVIEW jokes from last year though?

I downloaded the package and the controls all look great! Thanks for putting them out for everyone to use as well.

The NI OPC Server doesn't have an ABB driver so if you wanted to connect it to an OPC Server, you would need to find one with a driver. http://www.ni.com/white-paper/6417/en/ It also looks like the AC500 has a few options for communication modules so if you aren't committed to an OPC Server you could see if there are other ways to communicate to the PLC like Modbus or Ethernet IP.

Is there any info for the 2017 BBQ yet? Last I saw, Hooovahh hadn't heard back from the organizers yet. I'm pretty excited though, I can't wait to enjoy the BBQ in sub-100 degree weather.

Ohh, that makes much more sense.

So are you trying to add a virtual folder under the Build Specifications section of a project? I've never seen a virtual folder there and I can't seem to add one manually in a LabVIEW project or even drag an existing, empty, virtual folder into build specifications. If LabVIEW is throwing an error that you 'Can't add the container to build specification' I'm guessing it's just not something you can do. I'm also not sure why there would be an auto-populating folder under the build specifications because the build specifications don't have files associated with them.

I could only guess the reason for it being this way so I'm not going to.

NI OPC Servers (the standalone application) supports connections from NI clients using both OPC DA and OPC UA for data access. NI Clients being key here so if you try to use an Ignition client, for example, you would not be able to connect and would see the above service fault if you looked into the wireshark. This was a service request I handled and I confirmed with our R&D team that it is expected behavior. Alternatively, you can set up an OPC UA Server using the API from the DSC or RT modules. I obviously can't test every setup but, as far as I know, you can use any client to connect to a server built this way.

Sorry I wasn't too clear. If you use the OPC UA Server API it should allow third party clients. Connecting to NI OPC Server from a third party UA client is not going to work and a Wireshark will show the server return Service Fault BadOutofMemory.

Thanks for the reply. Having the write being optional makes this very problematic because even if I confirm that the datatype is correctly configured I may not be able to check whether the write really worked. If I can't guarantee my checks, it may be best to just not allow it and put some bookmarks in the code so people could change that behavior for their deployment. Still not 100% sure what I'll do but I have more to think about now. It's definitely bad and I filed a CAR but in the meantime I'll have to manually check this.

Another thing I forgot to mention. You aren't going to be able to use the Datasocket API on a cRIO to read an OPC DA tag (from my testing). I tried this the other day and if you have any URL starting with opc:// you will receive an error that it isn't a supported communication protocol.

For a little background, I am working on an OPC UA client plugin for DCAF (http://forums.ni.com/t5/Distributed-Control-Automation/gp-p/5235) and ran into an annoying bug in LabVIEW API. The client API has a polymorphic read function with one instance for each data type. What I found was that if you have a valid NodePath input but chose the wrong data type for that item, you won't receive any warnings or errors and the function outputs some default value. This means that there isn't really a way to tell whether the read returned a valid value, so to get around this, I am planning on using the Get Node Attribute function to manually confirm that the user's configuration is correct at program start. What I am unsure about is the case where a user wants to read a single element of an array so I'm hoping someone has done something like this in the path and would be able to tell me: 1. Does OPC UA allow for clients to read a single element of an array item? LabVIEWs implementation does not (from what I could find) but from some google searches it seems like this is allowed. 2. If this is valid, is there a standard way of addressing a single element in an array? 3. Does anyone know of a free OPC UA server or one that has a trial where you are able to address a single element in an array? If anyone has something like this set up (or tried this in the past) I would also be interested to know what data type the Get Node Attribute returns if the node path is referencing a single item in an array.

Going in the opposite direction, if you are going to use an NI OPC Server, that will force you to use an NI Client, the Server will reject a connection from a non-NI client (UA or DA). I haven't tried to connect to a cRIO's SVE with a OPC DA client but I would not expect that to work. My understanding is that the SVE acts as a DA Server (at least in the windows context) and because OPC DA is based on DCOM it wouldn't be able to run on on a cRIO or any other non-Windows target.

I agree with everyone else that the second image looks like a binary image. If this is just coming straight out of the acquisition assistant express VI it might just be how the image indicator is configured to view what's being passed to it. I would try right clicking the image indicator and changing what is selected under the palette options if it is currently set to one of the binary options. If you're working in the vision assistant you'll have to select the color drop down up top to get the same options. Either way, I would suggest hovering over the images which should tell you the pixel values at the bottom of your window. That will let you know if something in the acquisition has changed or if it is just displaying the images differently for whatever reason.

A property of ControlTerminal is Control which gives you a reference to the front panel item. In your case you would need to change the class specifier constant being fed into the to more specific class to ControlTerminal (GObject > Terminal > Control Terminal) and then get the front panel reference from another property node before getting the label's text.

I think this webcast does a decent job of explaining some of the basics. http://www.ni.com/webcast/2703/en/ That might get you started but the best way to learn it will be to use it in a project.

I'm sure you got this working by now but did you run DETT in LabVIEW 2016 before looking for the .ini? I just had to change this ini last week and found it in the location you listed.

Super strange, I notified one of our LV PSEs and filed CAR 614644.

I will be looking forward to a LAVA BBQ where I'm not sweating just because I'm sitting outside. This year I was at least smart enough to bring a change of clothes.

That's good to know, where do you start from to get that container reference though?