I am looking for some information on ELAN protocol for Siemens analyzers and also some information on AK protocol for California Analytical Analyzers. Mainly I need a starting point to communicate with these devices for labview.

[DavidBoyd]

Andreas,

I apologize for the delay.  I sent you a private email with a zip archive attached.

Best regards,

Dave

[TylerDurden]

Thank you very much for your email. This driver looks very good and professional. I wish you a nice day and again many thanks to you.

Andreas

[psohler5]

David,

   I too am looking for a LabView driver for the Ultramat. If you could email this to me I would be very gratetful. I run a small gas appliance development lab and we have several Ultramats here.  Very good instruments, but the ease of interfacing them leaves something to be desired. 

Thanks for any help you can provide.

[DavidBoyd]

Paul,

I replied to your email address with an attachment.  Let me know that you got it OK, especially since I neglected to ask what version of LabVIEW you're running.

Dave

[Sanders2527]

Hi David,

I am with Siemens Industry and am curious to see how labVIEW works with our Siemens analyzers.  Can you send me a copy of the program you wrote so I can try it.  I am in the process of downloading labVIEW on a 30 day trial bases.  If it works well with our analyzers then I want to buy a copy. 

[bainsteven]

Hiya David,

I am not sure if this is the right forum (or if you are still reading this thread!) - but, after searching endlessly on the Internet, it looks like you might just be able to give me the information I require!  

I have been brought into a company to "fix" a piece of software written in VB6 which monitors data from an Ultramat 23.  The comms have all been set-up, etc (via RS232) and the software reads-in a 'data string' (my experience of these devices is non-existent... so I am assuming this is an ELAN telegram?).

I've been playing with SIPROM GA, and have worked-out which bits of data are which for Components 1/2/3 - and can parse this 'string' correctly (I THINK!) to return the specific values into the VB6 program.

However, there appears to be a set of 'flags'(?) at the end of the data transmission (between a "d" and a "k" character(?!)) which are referenced (to some extent) in the existing software - but there is no way of knowing what they are for (there was NO comments in the original code, and nowhere can I find what the protocol is for this 'input string' so I can parse it correctly and handle all information it's dishing out).

Ideally I'm looking for a standardisation document which outlines what delimiters/escape characters/tokens are used... which will allow me to parse the full string correctly.

The VIs work you've done - would this help me?... or am I barking entirely up the wrong tree?

Any information you can provide will be of massive help.

My personal e-mail address is:  bainsteven@hotmail.com

I thank you in advance.

Cheers,

Steve.

[DavidBoyd]

Steve,

The instrument driver code I wrote will help you if you're writing code in LabVIEW.... but if you're writing in VB6, not so much.

If you're just trying to troubleshoot someone else's VB code with respect to ULRAMAT communications, you're working in the dark unless/until you get a copy of the Siemens-published document which describes the ELAN serial protocol.  I'll send you a copy since it seems hard to find on any of the Siemens support websites.  Just be warned, it's not an 'easy' protocol, in the sense that there's no simple termination character sequence; they compute CRC on packets in both directions; there's a mix of readable ASCII and arbitrary binary chars (including embedded null chars - death to most string library routines in VB); plus funky DLE escape sequencing, etc.

After you've inspected the ELAN protocol doc, if your eyes are still glazed over, check back here and I or one of the other good folk who've tamed the ELAN beast may be able to help you further.  Of course, you'll get a lot more out of this forum if you work in LabVIEW.

Visual Basic is just *so* twentieth century.... 😉

Best of luck!

Dave

[bainsteven]

Thanks David,

I have received your e-mail and will start wading-through the documentation!  :-S

Unfortunately, as I am trying to "fix" someone else's archaic VB6 code, I do not have the luxury of working in LabVIEW (I don't think... again, my knowledge in this area is non-existent... I'm a programmer!)  Lol.

From what you've mentioned so far it appears we're on the same page... from what I can see there is a mix of readable ASCII and arbitrary binary characters - with a few DLE bytes in there which I cannot make head nor tale of!  It could be possible that I'm actually trying to parse a CRC - which wouldn't surprise me... as I have no confidence in the 'programmer' who 'attempted' to write this program - nor ANY of the code that is in here!  🙂

Thank you SO much for you quick reply and helpfulness - I will keep you 'posted' as to how I get on.

Cheers,

Steve.

[bainsteven]

Hiya David,

The Series 6 ELAN Manual was exactly the document I required - it's taken me 2 days but I've now managed to make complete sense of the "k2" broadcast message which the Ultramat 23 analyser is outputting every 500ms.  🙂

Due to restrictions around the original code (and time limitations) I have only handled the specific message(s) which are relevant to my application (ie: a broadcast message containing data for 3 components) - however, if anyone in the future requires help with regards to the ELAN protocol (in VB6!) then I'm happy to share what I've done and point them in the right direction.

Thanks again for all your help!

Steve.

bainsteven@hotmail.com

[ErBas]

Hi David,

Recently I bought an ULTRAMAT/OXYMAT 6E and I am very interested in your VIs to perform a communication between my computer and my analyzer. Please could send me your ZIP file at eric.dankev@gmail.com

Thank you,

Best regards,

Eric