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Using the Instrument I/O Assistant

Module by: National Instruments

Summary: In this lesson, you will how to use the Instrument I/O Assistant.

The Instrument I/O Assistant located on the Functions>>Input and Functions>>All Functions>>Instrument I/O palettes is a LabVIEW Express VI which you can use to communicate with message-based instruments and graphically parse the response. For example, you can communicate with an instrument that uses a serial, Ethernet, or GPIB interface. Use the Instrument I/O Assistant when an instrument driver is not available.

The Instrument I/O Assistant organizes instrument communication into ordered steps. To use Instrument I/O Assistant, you place steps into a sequence. As you add steps to the sequence, they appear in the Step Sequence window. Use the view associated with a step to configure instrument I/O.

To launch the Instrument I/O Assistant, place the Instrument I/O Assistant Express VI on the block diagram. The Instrument I/O Assistant configuration dialog box appears. If it does not appear, double-click the Instrument I/O Assistant icon. Complete the following steps to configure the Instrument I/O Assistant.

  1. Select an instrument. Instruments that have been configured in MAX appear in the Select an instrument pull-down menu.
  2. Choose a Code generation type. VISA code generation allows for more flexibility and modularity than GPIB code generation.
  3. Select from the following communication steps using the Add Step button:
    • Query and Parse - Sends a query to the instrument, such as *IDN? and parses the returned string. This step combines the Write command and Read and Parse command.
    • Write - Sends a command to the instrument.
    • Read and Parse - Reads and parses data from the instrument.
  4. After adding the desired number of steps, click the Run button to test the sequence of communication that you have configured for the Express VI.
  5. Click the OK button to exit the Instrument I/O Assistant configuration dialog box.

LabVIEW adds input and output terminals to the Instrument I/O Assistant Express VI on the block diagram that correspond to the data you will receive from the instrument.

To view the code generated by the Instrument I/O Assistant, right-click the Instrument I/O Assistant icon and select Open Front Panel from the shortcut menu. This converts the Express VI to a subVI. Switch to the block diagram to see the code generated.

Note:

Once an Express VI has been converted to a subVI, it cannot be converted back.

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