NI-GPIB-USB-HS Adapters

[W2LPC]

Hello all. Has anyone had any issues with the NI GPIB-USB-HS Adapters blowing up? Has anyone had issues with them just stop working but can still see and query them in NIMax? My company has several of these for our lab and they seem to be dying for no reason. We are using Lenovo thin clients with Windows 10 Pro and Fluke MetTrack 8.3.2. It seems, for some reason, the adapters are dying and I can only think of it being a voltage problem. Are there tests I can perform? ANY help on this would be appreciated.

[santo_13]

It definitely sounds like a voltage surge issue, given you've several damaged GPIB adapters. What do you connect the GPIB adapters to? How good are those grounded?

[W2LPC]

Thanks for the reply. We are connecting to standard calibrators like Fluke 5500, 5520, 8846. HP 3458. Nothing complicated. I have noticed that the power output from the thin clients does fluctuate between 5.01 to 4.65 VDC while the GPIB is connected to the USB port (I have a USB power analyzer connected to the USB output). When you start the Fluke calibration software (MetCal) it will poll the devices on the line and start the calibration procedure. Sometimes it works and sometimes the software says 1932: ENOL which is NO listeners. Reboot and it will work. This goes on with several adapters and not others. ALL are NI units and are HS. I have tried to slow it down and also tried the older non HS adapters. This won't even load in Windows. So, I don't know what else it could be other than the adapters are seeing an over-voltage condition or some other type of failure to cause them to disconnect from the IEEE.

[santo_13]

Thanks for the details. Do you have a laptop or non-thin client to try with? or use a powered reliable USB hub to remove the Thin client's 5V unstable being the root cause.

[W2LPC]

Hi. We have 4 ONSITE laptops and all of them are having this issue. As I stated before, it's not ALL of the adapters. We have about 12 and I'd say at least 8 are having an issue. I have my own at my desk and mine works fine on all the computers and calibrators. Just some of the others seem to be going brain dead. Those are used often so, I'm thinking they got spiked and are somehow damaged. It's very frustrating trying to pin down a random fault like this. If I can see it in NIMax, ping it and communicate with it, WHY does it not work OR work when connected to a device? That's the rub. As far as a powered hub, no, I don't have one here that I trust.

[santo_13]

I empathize with your frustration as you have witnessed several USB-GPIB adapters failing. I don't think this will interest NI (I am not representing NI in any way and just sharing a general business perspective) as it is not widespread with customers to consider as a product design issue as these have not changed in decades and would rub it off as an isolated case.

Now, if you're good with electronics or know someone who is, you can take apart a failed GPIB adapter to analyze the failure case, which might give some clues about what caused the failure.

If you're not interested in the root cause analysis, switching to PCIe-GPIB cards is a better option than USB, but it doesn't guarantee that this failure will not happen again.

[W2LPC]

Well, my position here is electronics service and I have opened the adapters. Interesting thing, there is NO type of choke or filtering that I could see. Maybe I need to build a choke for the 5v input and a small ceramic cap to ground. It's worth a try. Here's a link for me. Mind you, I'm no old PRO here. Just an over enthusiastic electronics enthusiast!

https://www.qrz.com/db/w2lpc/