Do I NEED to install Visa to use com ports

[AndyNC]

Hi,

I want to use com ports under WinXP. Every example I find searching the web uses Visa.

Are there any VIs that can handle com ports without Visa being installed?

All I need to do is read and write binary data to and from serial ports.

Many thanks

Andy

[Matthew_Kelton · Accepted solution]

You can use .NET:

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/system.io.ports.serialport.aspx

[AndyNC]

Searching with .net in the search string gave me an example I could work with.

All the other examples I found used Visa.

Many thanks

[smercurio_fc]

What do you have against using VISA? Going the .NET route adds an unnecessary layer of complexity.

[AndyNC]

I was trying to avoid the overhead in deployment. The target machines already have .net and are on the end of an internet connection at another office of our company.

Looking at examples of .net and Visa I couldn't see how one was simpler/more complicated than the other.

If you have an example of how one is easier to use than the other I'll go with the easiest to implement provided there's no deployment headache.

As this is the first comms app in Labview I'm open to suggestions.

Cheers

Andy

[smercurio_fc]

I don't know what you are trying to do, and what you consider "easy" or "complex". Have you looked at the shipping examples? My comment regarding the additional complexity is that you have to concern yourself with making sure you have the right version of .NET. There have been some issues with some versions of .NET not working well with some versions of LabVIEW. Also, calls into the .NET layer are slower than simply going into VISA. Again, I don't know what you're doing, so I don't know if that's going to be an issue in your case.

[AndyNC]

Your comments are useful.

What I'm trying to do is a production calibration system. Part of the system requires bi-direction comms to UUT. The comms is simple fixed length messages in binary. Speed it not an issue.

I understand your point on complexity, it's not in the creation of the VI's but in the potential issues between versions of Labview and .net. This point would make using Visa simpler because I don't have control of the .net version on the target machine.

Going back to original issue: I need to find out the increase in the size of the install package when using Visa. Although development takes place locally, the install package is send to a remote site over the internet using a windows network. Currently simple application packages take upwards of 20mins to transfer and I don't want to make this much longer.

If you have any experience of the overhead visa may cause this would be very useful. Other wise I'll create one and compare sizes.

Many thanks

Andy

[Coq_Rouge]

If VISA and the Labview run time engine is installed properly on the target. Both these items will not be needed in later updates of the software. As long as you stay on the same Labview development system version. That my shave a lot time from the downloading time to the target

[AndyNC]

I think that's the way to go.

Our initial attempts at this didn't work, ie we installed the runtime engine separately and the application didn't work after installation. Methinks some experiments are in order to establish why so the deployment overhead is cut right down.

Cheers

Andy