Can I share one GPIB device with 2 PCs?

[MKS_sjacques]

Has anyone ever shared 1 GPIB device with 2 PCs? I have an expensive piece of equipment that I would like to share across several test platforms via GPIB, and I wanted to find out any caveats/tips/tricks before I go down this path...

Your help would be greatly appreciated!

Thanks.

[Rolf Kalbermatter]

Has anyone ever shared 1 GPIB device with 2 PCs? I have an expensive piece of equipment that I would like to share across several test platforms via GPIB, and I wanted to find out any caveats/tips/tricks before I go down this path...

Your help would be greatly appreciated!

Thanks.

You can do that but you will have to get acquinted with some low level GPIB details and API functions. Basically a GPIB bus always has exactly one system controller (this is called SC in GPIB speak). This is normally the PC but since you have two of them you will have to configure one of them to be the system controller (that is the default for a PC GPIB interface) and the other to be not so.

Then at any time there can only be one interface a controller in charge (called CIC). A system controller can at all times request control over the GPIB bus and therefore be CIC, aborting any ongoing communication by another controller that has been CIC. In order for a non-SC to get a CIC it has to wait for the current CIC to pass control to it.

This all can be done for sure using the old traditional GPIB functions and I'm sure there are still some documents on the NI site explaining that. I have no idea if VISA supports multi controller functionality in any way. Last time I checked it didn't seem to.

Rolf Kalbermatter

[MKS_sjacques]

Rolf,

Thank you for your reply, I did look through the NI site for info on this, I'll dig a little deeper. Fortunately the code was written some time ago (LV5 I believe) and therefore is using the older GPIB communication VIs. I was actually going to set this up to play with it a little... since it appears that it's possible it's just a matter of figuring out how to accomplish it.

Thanks again!

Steve

[Phillip Brooks]

1 GPIB device with 2 PCs

I've used the ICS Electronics 4842 to share an 8 1/2 digit DMM between two computers. I bought mine on EBay for ~$100; I think they cost quite a bit more than that retail though...

http://www.icselect.com/gpib_extdr_ds.html#sw

I saw one today on EBay

[Louis Manfredi]

Hi MKS-

Just a half-thought-out idea-- but perhaps you could have a VI in one PC serve as the sole interface to the GPIB gadget, and have it set up as a server so that other VIs on the other PC can access the gadget through it. This just might be easier than dealing with the GPIB environment and figururing out how to pass the CIC baton back and forth between a number of machines.

As I said, haven't thought deeply about this, but perhaps its a useful approach.

Best Regards, Louis.

[Neville D]

Has anyone ever shared 1 GPIB device with 2 PCs? I have an expensive piece of equipment that I would like to share across several test platforms via GPIB, and I wanted to find out any caveats/tips/tricks before I go down this path...

Your help would be greatly appreciated!

Thanks.

Hook up the device to one PC, and then in NI-MAX on the other PC, configure the device to be accessible as a "remote VISA" device. Tools>NI VISA>VISA Options-General Settings-Remote.

That way you have access to it through VISA, and can use the same software on both PC's, one accessing the device "locally" and the other using the remote VISA functionality.

I believe you can also use this method to have access to the serial ports of a different PC. Speed MIGHT be an issue if you are getting large amounts of data from the instrument.

PS I haven't tried it this way before, but it looks like it should work.

Neville.