Acquire Signal with NI-SCOPE 5102

[FilipeV]

Hello. i'm a beginner in LabView. I have to acquire signal from a NI-Scope 5102 and I have absolutely no idea how to do that in LabView, I instaled the drivers but in my computer I don't have the acquisition boards. I tried to see the examples and I can´t find nothing that can possibly help me. I need a step-by-step explanation of what to do. 

[Dennis_Knutson]

Exactly what in the examples do you need help with? What about the express scope function that walks you through the setup? How familiar are you with scopes in general?

[FilipeV]

I'm not familiar at all with scopes. I only used labview with the generators provided in the functions palette. I tried to use (and understand) the express scope but I don't know how do I take measures of the signal, or how to switch channels. I tried to use the following examples: Two Channel Oscilloscope and IviScope - Acq Dual Wfm Edge Triggered, in the first case I realized that it had the square and the sine wave by default and I couldn't change that. In the second one I could'n make what was written in the Front Panel. By what I searched in the Web, the express scope sounds the best option, but my enourmous lack of knowledge in LabView prevented me from doing anything with that.

[Dennis_Knutson]

The first example uses simulated signals as is clearly mentioned and I would recomend that you skip IVI for the time being. If you don't know when and why you should use an IVI driver, then it is best to stick with the dedicated NI-Scope functions. You can limit the examples to your hardware. There is one called niScope EX Getting Started.

Have you seen Start>All Programs>National Instruments>NI-Scope>Examples? Have you gone through the NI-Scope Help? What exactly did you try with the Express VI? Without any hardware, you will be limited to running only in simulaiton mode, of course. With the actual hardware, you can simply click the auto setup button.

You need to provide some details on the signal you are trying to capture and what you want to do with it. You also need to obtain a basic understanding of scopes in general before trying to do any sort of LabVIEW programming. It does not make much sense to not understand the basic instrumention first. Get a grasp of what the different terms (sample rate, number of samples, vertical ranges, etc.) mean. I don't understand some of your confusion. Changing channels is simply a matter of clicking on an option box.

When you have the basics of the hardware understood and can capture a signal with the soft front panel (Start>All Programs>National Instruments>NI-Scope>Soft Front Panel), then try the express VI or the shipping examples.

[FilipeV]

All right I will tell you what I have to do. In college we built a printed circuit board that produces a triangular and square signal. In the second part of the work we have to build a virtual instrument capable of selecting only of both signal or both of them at the same time, display in a graph the selected signal and saving the values in a file. The signals generated in the circuit will be read with a NI-Scope 5102. If you wanted to do this what would you do?

I will see the examples and try to understand what I should do.

I only had one lesson of LabView and we didn't do anything like this. We only worked with some waves and learned to control the frequency and other parameters, and to view the waves on a graph. That's why I'm so confused with this.

[JÞB]

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@FilipeV wrote:

All right I will tell you what I have to do. In college we built a printed circuit board that produces a triangular and square signal. In the second part of the work we have to build a virtual instrument capable of selecting only of both signal or both of them at the same time, display in a graph the selected signal and saving the values in a file. The signals generated in the circuit will be read with a NI-Scope 5102. If you wanted to do this what would you do?

I will see the examples and try to understand what I should do.

I only had one lesson of LabView and we didn't do anything like this. We only worked with some waves and learned to control the frequency and other parameters, and to view the waves on a graph. That's why I'm so confused with this.

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I'd cheat.  You haven't been properly trained with the tool.

Use Signal Express Set up measurement step and data logging.  Configure the OI with a boxes for chanel selection. test it.  Generate LabVIEW code

The context aware help you'll have in SE will probably teach you a bit about scopes too.

(I can't believe I just said that but if the profs won't teach the tools that only leaves bad practices to get'r'done) Don't think that your programming that way though

[FilipeV]

if I only know how to cheat. I I told that we don't have the tool's she probably will tell me to look for it on the internet or on the examples. And that's why i'm here searching for help.

[Dennis_Knutson]

The example I mentioned does everything you need except the save to file and there are other examples that do that. Go to Help>Show Context Help and as you move your mouse over controls and functions on the block diagram, read what the help has to say.

[FilipeV]

All right, thank you very much.