Easier NI-MAX access to CAN-Modules NI-9862 in cRIO

[Thomas09]

Currently viewing, testing or configuring NI-9862 Modules in a cRIO using NI-MAX needs a lot of effort. It requires:

- Installation of the complete Labview Realtime and FPGA development suite on the connected PC

- Setting up a Labview project including the NI-9862 Modules and an empty FPGA VI

- Compiling the emty FPGA VI to a FPGA bitmap file

- Starting the FPGA VI

Without these steps the NI-9862 Modules are invisible in NI-MAX

Proposed improvement:

- NI-MAX should include a default FPGA bitmap file that includes the communication with NI-9862 modules

- When the user connects to the cRIO with NI-MAX, the current cRIO configuation should be automatically saved to a backup and the default bitmap file should be activated

- When the user disconnects, the backup should be restored

Advantage:

- viewing, testing or configuring NI-9862 Modules in a cRIO could be possible just by starting the NI-MAX and connecting to the cRIO, as simple as with any standard I/O modules.

[JefeL]

We aware of this pain point for our cusotmers are are working to improve the overall experience. Technical limitations have prevented us from including native support for NI-MAX functinoality on our older cRIO devices. We have been able to improve the experience with cRIOs that run Linux-RT such as the 903x series which include native support by default. In a cRIO-903x, a XNET C-Series device can be detected and updated in MAX without the need to compile a bitfile etc.