Finding a method to interact with the Kissler 5704B412 with LabVIEW

[jerryjacob94]

Hi NI, 

I am Jerry Jacob, a technician from the University of Auckland. I have the following setup with me which has two charge amplifier Kistler 5074B412 which is connected to a router using RJ-45. The router is connected to a NI-DAQ 9133 for acquiring the data in the charge amplifier. 

Numerous attempts were made to acquire data from the charge amplifier like connecting using a remote connection in NI-MAX and so on. Is there any other way to acquire data using Kistler 5074B412. 

Kindly let me know what feasible technique can be utilized to counter this situation. 

Regards
Jerry Jacob

[santo_13]

My first thought when you said connected to router was "no, it doesn't make sense" but after looking up the part number, it does support Ethernet/IP

https://www.kistler.com/US/en/p/digital-industrial-charge-amplifier-5074b412/000000000018042828

There are user manual that may shed light on testing the charge amplifier but those require a user account for access.

[Kyle97330]

Using Ethernet/IP is possible in LabVIEW.

NI has a LabVIEW toolkit for this:

https://www.ni.com/en-us/shop/product/ni-industrial-communications-for-ethernet-ip.html

It is not free though.

If your school doesn't have or won't buy a license for that, I've previously had good luck with EEIP.DLL, a .NET Framework DLL, in LabVIEW.

The site that maintained it was http://www.eeip-library.de/ but it appears to have not been renewed.  If you look a year back in the archive.org wayback machine you can still see the site.

There are still official-ish places to get it:

https://www.nuget.org/packages/EEIP/

https://github.com/rossmann-engineering/EEIP.NET

[jerryjacob94]

Do you know the procedures of how to utilize these links to create a Ethernet/IP connection to LabVIEW. 

https://www.nuget.org/packages/EEIP/

https://github.com/rossmann-engineering/EEIP.NET

[rolfk]

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@jerryjacob94 wrote:

Do you know the procedures of how to utilize these links to create a Ethernet/IP connection to LabVIEW. 

https://www.nuget.org/packages/EEIP/

https://github.com/rossmann-engineering/EEIP.NET

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Well, Ethernet/IP is a somewhat weird protocol to understand, and the naming they use is also different to other computer communication interfaces. Personally I found it hard to follow and understand.

EEIP being a .Net library doesn't make it simpler. Yes it is easier to interface to a .Net assembly than trying to call DLL functions, since much of the interface configuration in the calls to the .Net methods is done by LabVIEW for you based on the information in the interface description resource in the assembly. But that is just one part of the problem. The bigger problem is usually to figure out the functions a library provides, and especially how to use them properly.

It's an interesting project to learn something new, but don't expect to get this working with a day or two of work.

This seems to have even some LabVIEW related files to download, so if you are lucky you may not have to create the VI library to access the .Net assembly.

[Kyle97330]

Well you could start by looking at the example:

https://github.com/rossmann-engineering/EEIP.NET/tree/master/EEIP.NET/LabView%20Example

Beyond that, I've only used this on one device and it probably works differently than yours.

[jerryjacob94]

Hi Kyle,

I was able to download and install the Industrial Communication for Ethernet/IP in LabVIEW. It was available in https://www.ni.com/en/support/downloads/drivers/download.ni-industrial-communications-for-ethernet-i....

I have checked for the IP addresses for both my Kistler charge amplifiers 5074B412 as shown in one of the figures. I was able to ping the devices using command window too.

I need to know how can I use these IP addresses in LabVIEW via the Ethernet/IP?

Regards
Jerry Jacob

[rolfk]

Ethernet/IP is a specific protocol with its own specific naming. Basically your application is called a Scanner and your device usually an Adapter. Not very intuitive to begin with if you are used to other communication technologies but it is what it is.

An Ethernet/IP adapter provides so called Objects, which are data elements with a certain functionality to inform about Interfaces, Identities, Assemblies, Parameters and Application Specific Items. Your device documentation needs to provide information about these objects and with what name they need to be addressed by a scanner application.

So there is actually no simple Ethernet/IP example that could work for your device as each device has their own objects that it provides aside from a few standard objects such as Interface and Identity object.

This is a very basic description of what Ethernet/IP is and the names and principles used.

[jerryjacob94]

Hi rolfk,

I see that the Kissler charge amplifier has a .eds file. Is there any way where we can utilize this file to create an interface between Kistler and LabVIEW?

Regards
Jerry Jacob

[santo_13]

Checkout this thread on using *.eds file with LabVIEW - https://forums.ni.com/t5/Industrial-Communications/Read-EDS-file-for-EtherNet-IP/td-p/2930320