Interfacing Labview with Arduino and Zigbee

[shogunato3]

Ok, then our system is on track Thermocouple>amplifier>Zigbee>Zigbee>LabVIEW.

I found this: https://learn.adafruit.com/thermocouple/using-a-thermocouple

Which interprets the voltage then to arduino. And of course graph the temperature with time. What VI shall I use? The Digital Read right?

I will update once we are doing the said project.

[hrh1818]

I disagree with Nathan.   Because you are using XBee to communicate with the 3 nodes Labview will only see the XBee Explorer's COM port. When setting up your system you will need to configure each node with a specific address. Then to get a reading from a node Labview has to include the node's address with the request for a reading.

Furthermore you do not need a custom version of LIFA.  What you need to do is port the Arduino MAX31855 code to Labview.  It will be a lot easier to port the MAX31855 code to Labview than creating a custom version of LIFA.  You can  get MAX31855 help from previous MAX31855 discussions in this forum. 

Prior to running the system you will need to plug each node's Arduino board into the XBee Explorer, configure the XBee using DIGI's XCTU software and load the LIFA firmware onto the Arduino board.

For XBee background information see:

<https://www.sparkfun.com/pages/xbee_guide>

For Xbee installation information see:

<https://learn.sparkfun.com/tutorials/xbee-shield-hookup-guide>

hrh1818

[Nathan_B.]

My comment about using multiple Arduino wasn't really in the context of using all arduinos on the same USB device.

Your comment regarding having to send additional information to the USB device makes me think you need to modify LIFA to do so.

My comment about customizing LIFA was because it seemed to me that he had working Arduino code that already did all the necessary measurements and was merely porting over to LabVIEW.

Granted, I might be getting confused with the other thread about connecting three Arduinos simultaneously.  Or, I'm just really tired and am not comprehending things correctly .

[shogunato3]

hrh1818 wrote:

I disagree with Nathan.   Because you are using XBee to communicate with the 3 nodes Labview will only see the XBee Explorer's COM port. When setting up your system you will need to configure each node with a specific address. Then to get a reading from a node Labview has to include the node's address with the request for a reading.

How will I do this? After doing this I would get a different COM? I cant find any in this forum or Im searching wrong I found for 1 xbee but not similar to mine.

I think I found the thread you are talking about MAX31855.

[hrh1818]

hrh1818 wrote:

I disagree with Nathan.   Because you are using XBee to communicate with the 3 nodes Labview will only see the XBee Explorer's COM port. When setting up your system you will need to configure each node with a specific address. Then to get a reading from a node Labview has to include the node's address with the request for a reading.

How will I do this? After doing this I would get a different COM? I cant find any in this forum or Im searching wrong I found for 1 xbee but not similar to mine.

If by your question "How will I do this?", do you mean How do you "configure each node with a specific address."?

This link describes how to configure each node with a specific address. 

<https://learn.sparkfun.com/tutorials/xbee-shield-hookup-guide>

If by your question "How will I do this?", do you mean "What COM port will the Xbee Explorer board use?

When you run the Digi XCTU software he XCTU program will tell you what COM port The XBee Exporer is using.  Windows remembers this COM port and will always use the same COM port for a specific Xbee Exporer.  When you use this specific Xbee Explorer for configuring other XBees or with Labview, Windows uses the same COM port as it did when you first connected the XBee Explorer to your PC.

This instruction I previously wrote is misleading

"Prior to running the system you will need to plug each node's Arduino board into the XBee Explorer, configure the XBee using DIGI's XCTU software and load the LIFA firmware onto the Arduino board.

I should have said "Prior to running the system you will need to plug each node's XBee board into the XBee Explorer and configure the XBee using DIGI's XCTU software.  For the Arduino boards you will need to connect each board to the PC and load the LIFA firmware onto the Arduino board. 

hrh1818

[shogunato3]

Hi guys! Its me again. From my previous problem. Ive thought of something. I know that an arduino can be set or programmed with their own zigbee send data 1 by 1. like Node A>>B>>C.

Using LIFA, we know that it can only communicate 1:1

1) Node A sends data to Labview via zigbee, LV then now will receive data but it would not be graphed it has to wait for Nodes A and B first.

2) Node A's data is in data desegnated for Node A data bank, the next data which is from Node B, will not go to node A's designated data, rather to Node B's desegnated data bank.

I was wondering if there is a switch (automatic) where it could switch data destination.

[Nathan_B.]

I don't entirely understand how you are trying to set up multiple Arduinos.  Are you connecting them all individually with their own coordinator? If yes, then it's easy, each one will have it's own Arduino resource.

[shogunato3]

Nope. Same setup. 3 nodes each using 1 coordinator. The only difference is that I will be programming nodes to send their data not at the same time. But in a timely manner. Although I dont know or what vi in LV that can alternate the signal.

[Nathan_B.]

You won't be able to do any of this with LIFA.  We had a long discussion about using 3 Arduinos with 1 coordinator in one of your previous discussions.

I think the summary goes like this:

If you want to use LIFA, you will need to add a significant component to it to make it work.  Otherwise, you have to design something using just the VISA drivers to communicate with both the coordinator and the Arduinos.  The latter method probably have many different methods for implementation.  You will need to find out what method will work for your application.  The "method" must inherently be able to determine from which Arduino the information is coming otherwise it won't work at all.

So, do you have any code written already?  What is your overall method for your project?  Are you simply streaming data back over the Xbee connection?  Do you have it streaming from all Arduinos simultaneously and are able to view all the data from all the Arduions via a serial monitor?

[shogunato3]

I have codes already for measuring the temperature, I will add buzzer and other indicators such as buzzer and LEDs which should be no problem?  Knowing that zigbee and arduino can't send simultaneously. Btw I would have my coordinator an arduino, since the zigbee that I bought requires to have an arduino. Meaning i can program data from the coordinator before sending it to the LV.