Downloading data from an Agilent 4155B

[PiotrW]

Hello everyone,

I am controlling an Agilent 4155B using the standard Labview drivers that are available. I have the following problem: each of my measurements requires a plot with containing a few curves (transistor characterisation). However, the data is being sent back from the 4155B to the PC as two very long columns. For example, for 5 curves on a single graph, I should have 5 pairs of columns. Instead, I have 2 columns that are 5 times as long as they should be.

The data is being sent to the PC using the "download trace" VI that comes with the driver (see attached). I will greatly appreciate help with this issue.

Best regards,

Peter

[billko]

If you have the programmer's guide, why not look up the commands and see what they do and what the output is?

[PiotrW]

My knowledge in Labview is quite basic... I suppose that the key information on how the data is sent from the 4155B is in the Op Download Trace.vi, but it seems to complicated for me to understand. The programmer's guide only has some SCPI commands mentioned, that's it.

[Dennis_Knutson]

All of the information should be in those SCPI commands. You can look at the block diagram to see what commands are issued. You could also turn on NI-Trace in MAX to get a list.

[PiotrW]

The SCPI command example in the programmer's guide is very basic, whereas the Labview vi for downloading the trace is much more complicated than that. From what you are saying, it seems that there is no simple advice for splitting the two columns of data into more columns?

[Dennis_Knutson]

The VI shouldn't be any more complicated than the SCPI commands it calls.

I can't look at your code. If the function returns a single trace, you are probably calling it incorrectly or building the array incorrectly. Can you pay an image of the block diagram?

[PiotrW]

Thanks very much for helping me. Attached is a screenshot of the Download trace Vi, which is from the 4155B driver. From what I understand, the data gathered for all measurements will be downloaded as one column per variable. I would like to split each of these columns into as many columns as I did measurements.

I've been thinking abut using the array subset function and calling it a few times to split the columns. The inputs for the array subset function are array (the very looong column with all the data), length (number of all rows in a column/ total measurement number) and index (length * number of a particular measurement). However, to do this for >10 measurements, I ideally would need a loop, as putting 10 array subset functions does not make sense, especially when I am measuring a few variables (40-50 array subset functions).

[Dennis_Knutson]

That does not show a thing how you are getting 5 separate traces, how you are displaying them, etc. I really don't care about the details of the low level function.

[PiotrW]

5 separate traces? Where do you see this on the block diagram? Would you have any idea how to create a loop that splits the data in a column into more columns?

[Dennis_Knutson]

Your very first post mentions 5 different traces. I'm not making this up.

Reshape array is one of those fundamental functions.