100% New to Labview need to learn how to talk to JDS optical attenuaters and optical power meters any help on how I should start

[yalilshikaka]

100% New to Labview need to learn how to talk to JDS optical attenuaters and optical power meters any help on how I should start. I work in the cable industry and my boss wants me to start automating testing. I want to begin by learning how to talk to the machines around me. Eventually Id like to automate my testing by auto changing optical and RF switches and being able to control VOAs at differnt power levels. In the end I would like to push one button to run multiple tests. Im 100% new to this and would like to know where I should start learning or if there are already scripts made for this type of stuff

[Tim_S]

100% New to Labview need to learn how to talk to JDS optical attenuaters and optical power meters any help on how I should start. I work in the cable industry and my boss wants me to start automating testing. I want to begin by learning how to talk to the machines around me. Eventually Id like to automate my testing by auto changing optical and RF switches and being able to control VOAs at differnt power levels. In the end I would like to push one button to run multiple tests. Im 100% new to this and would like to know where I should start learning or if there are already scripts made for this type of stuff

LabVIEW is a programming language and not something that you script, so it's going to take some work. You'll want to learn about how to create a state machine. I would check the manufacturer has "LabVIEW drivers" or example VIs to communicate with the optical attenuaters and the other hardware you're looking to control. The Basics I and II courses will get you familiar with how to work in LabVIEW development environment. Make good use of the examples that ship with LabVIEW and look through the different functions pallets to get a good feel for what is there.

Tim

[yalilshikaka]

lets say i would like a JDS Driver for an optical switch. how would i go about doing that? Check with manufacture meaning check with JDS?

[Tim_S]

lets say i would like a JDS Driver for an optical switch. how would i go about doing that? Check with manufacture meaning check with JDS?

Assuming JDS is a company, yes. You can also check on the National Instruments website (www.ni.com) where there are drivers for all sorts of instruments.

Tim

[Ian]

There are some excellent tutorials/webcasts on NI website.

Start here:

http://zone.ni.com/devzone/cda/tut/p/id/7466

http://search.ni.com/nisearch/app/main/p/ap/tech/lang/en/pg/1/sn/catnav:mm,ssnav:dzn/

http://zone.ni.com/dzhp/app/main

Instrument drivers can be found on NI website: http://search.ni.com/nisearch/app/main/p/ap/tech/lang/en/pg/1/sn/catnav:id/

A state machine is an excellent place to start: e.g. http://lavag.org/topic/14666-100-new-to-labview-need-to-learn-how-to-talk-to-jds-optical-attenuaters-and-optical-power-meters-any-help-on-how-i-should-start/

What is the model of the JDSU optical attenuator?

Ian

[pallen]

Just a really quick search and I found this on the NI Forums:

http://forums.ni.com/t5/Instrument-Control-GPIB-Serial/Do-you-have-a-Lab-View-driver-for-the-MTA-Optical-Attenuator/td-p/23068

These are apparently drivers for the JDS HA9 model.

This post is somewhat dated. I would contact the manufacturer for updated drivers.

[CRoebuck]

In additon to getting your hands on LabVIEW drivers (if available) or writing your own you're also going to need some way of interfacing to the equipment (JDS Uniphase stuff)

Typically this is going to be via one of the following methods;

USB

LAN

GPIB

In the case of GPIB then you're going to need a GPIB interface for your PC, National Instruments do an high speed USB-GPIB interface, see here; http://sine.ni.com/nips/cds/view/p/lang/en/nid/201586

USB and LAN are less costly interfaces but can be more complicated to chain if you have many instruments to control.

Chris

[MikaelH]

Hi Buddy

I work at Finisar in the Sydney and we have developed instrument drivers for almost all different type of Optical Instruments.

We use Object Oriented approach, which can make it a bit harder to develop the drivers if you are a beginner.

But using them becomes much easier.

I can't share the code with you unless you work at Finisar, do you?

It's a >5000 people company and I don't know everybody yet, I'm located in the Sydney office.

Here is a screen shot of one type of Attenuator's VI that sets the attenuation.

Cheers,

Mike