How do I create a periodic task (T = 30 mins) and still have the interface responsive?

[anarchix]

Hi.

I created an application that drives a stepper following a certain rule every few minutes. The problem is I cannot stop the program before it finishes since the respective iteration still needs the delay to timeout.

I used two approaches, namely a "Wait" block  and a Timeout included in a case structure. Either way, I had to wait for the time interval to pass in order to press the "Stop" button.

Is there an easy way to fire a periodic task (or alarm)?

Thanks.

[P@Anand]

It would be good if you can show the code what you have done as a snippet ot the vi (2009 version please)

[anarchix]

Thanks for your reply.

Can you give me some pointers regarding alternative methods to the two that I already wrote about? I'd like to try them first and then I'll post my code. I do this mostly because my script is very "spaghetti"-like and cleaning it up will take me some time.

All that I need is just the principle of the method no matter how generic it is.

[Dennis_Knutson · Accepted solution]

Why don't you use the Elapsed Time function?

[anarchix]

Already tried it. I must have set the wrong paramaters because I never got it working. My stepper is suppose to finish doing its thing in max 15 secs. I suspect that I set the wrong interval in the block and mistakenly assumed that the secquence was never executed -> my mistake was that for testing purposes I set the Elapsed Time interval to 10-30 seconds to make the tests faster.

I'll post un update as soon as I'll test my code.

Thanks a lot.

[P@Anand]

What is the delay time you are giving?

[anarchix]

It seems that I wasn't running Elapsed Time in a loop. Now everything runs fine.

Thank you.