GPIB Configuration with MAX (Windows Only) **new** 2004/06/16 11:32:36.954 GMT-5 2004/06/16 11:33:38.936 GMT-5 National Instruments certification@ni.com Harika Basana ilsai@rice.edu Malan Shiralkar mshiralkar05@hotmail.com Elizabeth Gregory lizzardg@rice.edu National Instruments certification@ni.com National Instruments LabVIEW exercise GPIB MAX In this exercise, our objective is to use MAX to examine the GPIB interface settings, detect instruments, and communicate with an instrument. Power off the NI Instrument Simulator and configure it to communicate through GPIB by setting the following left bank of switches on the side of the box.

Power on the NI Instrument Simulator and verify that both the Power and Ready LEDs are lit. Launch MAX by either double-clicking the icon on the desktop or by selecting Tools>>Measurement & Automation Explorer in LabVIEW. Expand the Devices and Interfaces section to display the installed interfaces. If a GPIB interface is listed, the NI-488.2 software is correctly loaded on the computer. Select the GPIB interface and click the Properties button on the toolbar to display the Properties dialog box. Examine but do not change the settings for the GPIB interface, and click the OK button. Make sure the GPIB interface is still selected in the Devices and Interfaces section and click the Scan for Instruments button on the toolbar. Expand the GPIB board section. One instrument named Instrument0 appears. Click Instrument0 to display information about it in the right pane of MAX. The NI Instrument Simulator has a GPIB primary address (PAD) of 2. Click the Communicate with Instrument button on the toolbar. An interactive window appears. You can use it to query, write to, and read from that instrument. Type *IDN? in Send String and click the Query button. The instrument returns its make and model number in String Received. You can use this window to debug instrument problems or to verify that specific commands work as described in the instrument documentation.

Type MEAS:DC? in Send String and click the Query button. The NI Instrument Simulator returns a simulated voltage measurement. Click the Query button again to return a different value. Click the Exit button. Set a VISA alias for the NI Instrument Simulator so you can use the alias instead of having to remember the primary address. While Instrument0 is selected in MAX, click the VISA Properties button to display the Properties dialog box. Type devsim in the VISA Alias field and click the OK button. You will use this alias throughout this lesson. Select File>>Exit to exit MAX.