Read USB from HART Evaluation Kit

[Ano Ano]

I have a DS5800 evaluation kit from Maxim Integrated and it comes with a USB port to read/write data. It also comes along with Maxim's software to read/write string data. I thought of interfacing it with LabVIEW and read from it. I tried to use the generic USB vi's in the example finder just in case I can read something but as expected it cannot even see anything connected.

 

Is there any way to get information from this or any USB port?

 

 

[ned]

Does the Maxim software come with a DLL or .NET assembly for interfacing to their device? If so, that's your best bet. While you can use VISA to talk directly to a USB device, you'd have to determine the correct protocol (through documentation or experimentation) and implement it, which would be very time consuming.

[ShaunR]

Most eval boards or programmers use a virtual (serial) com port. If the software they supplied lets you choose com1,2 etc then you can use the LabVIEW serial VIs to talk to it (if you know the commands)

[Ano Ano]

Thank you all for the replies.
 
The evaluation board comes with a software (*.exe & *.dll) written in .Net Framework v4.6 (I used a decompiler to find out!). The problem now is how to load it in LabVIEW. There is no .h file accompanying the .dll and if I import "connectivity>.NET> property/invoke then there is a huge list of commands but its not clear what to use to read & write. By the way the DS8500 is a HART modem.

[ned]

From a quick read through the datasheet for the evaluation kit, I see the following: "The onboard MAXQ622 is only for demonstration purposes (USB interface) and does not implement a HART software stack. The serial UART data and control pins are exposed via jumpers as detailed in Table 1. They allow a hardware serial port on a PC or laptop to transmit and receive modulated signals. Note that these serial pins expect TTL level signals (3.3V), not RS-232 level, so a serial level shifter board is typically required for communications."

 

Looks like the easiest way to connect this to LabVIEW is through a serial port connected to the serial connections on the board, with appropriate level shifting (or buy a USB-serial adapter that expects TTL level signals).