Interfacing between New and Old RT PXI

[Danmcg]

Hi, 

I am currently working with two PXI's- one which is on a recent copy of LabView 21.0.0 and the other that is a older PXI that can boot into Real-time using a floppy disk which I believe has a 2016 version of Labview installed. 

I have booted the older PXI into RT and connected it to the new PXI via Ethernet cable, after configuring the ethernet port on the new PXI I have been able to identify the old PXI on MAX, I can see the various cards installed and the software versions. 

When I try to create a Labview project and attempt to "Add Target or Device" the RT PXI is not available to use. I assumed this is because the software versions are different? (Please correct me if I am wrong)

Within MAX on the new PXI I attempted to update the software on the old PXI using the 21.0.0 version of the software that is on there, but was faced with the following error: 

"SCXI Signal Conditioning 17.0.0 requires NI-DAQmx 17.0.0" and "SCXI Signal Conditioning 17.0.0 requires Multifunctional DAQ 17.0.0" I cannot see either of these packages in the list of installed software on the old PXI.

Unfortunately both of the PXI's are unable to be connected to a network so I will have to download any software that is required on a different PC and then transfer it over. 

What would the suitable steps be to overcome this issue and allow me to add the RT PXI as a target on Labview?

Thanks in advance.

Dan

[Bob_Schor]

In my (limited) experience, when configuring a LabVIEW Real-Time system, you need to have the Host (the PC) and the RT Target (the PXI, cRIO, or whatever) running "compatible" versions of LabVIEW (which is satisfied if both run the same version, such as LabVIEW 2021 32-bit).  When I upgrade my version of LabVIEW, I take my RT Targets, connect them to my PC, run MAX, and use MAX to upgrade the drivers on the Target to be compatible with the Host version of LabVIEW using the Add/Remove software section of MAX (after selecting the RT system I was to configure).

If your Host is running LabVIEW 2021 32-bit, and your PXI Target is running LabVIEW 2017, I suspect there may well be software-compatibility issues.  I think NI is trying to make (some) software "version-tolerant", but I don't think they are there, yet.

I suggest you hook up your PXI, fire up MAX, and see if it offers to update the software for you.  Note that once you do this, your PXI system will (probably) not connect to its former Host version of LabVIEW (this has been my experience).

Bob Schor

[ZYOng]

Hi, please provide NI MAX Reports for both the host and RT PXI systems to show the list of installed software. I am guessing that you don't have the NI-DAQmx Support for Real-Time package installed. Go to the NI Package Manager, with Product Only option unchecked, and see if that package is listed under the INSTALLED or PACKAGES tab.

[Danmcg]

Hi there, 

After looking through the Max Report it is possible that the old PXI will not be able to be updated to the newer versions of Labview given its specification. I have attached a PDF of the reports, do you think it would be possible to update this older PXI?

Many Thanks,

Danny 

[Bob_Schor]

Wait a minute -- are you running a PXI system, with a PXI controller running Windows (as opposed to a Real-Time OS like PharLap or NI Linux Real-Time)?  Are you hoping to run code developed for Windows 2000 running LabVIEW 8.6  on a system configured with Windows 10 and LabVIEW 2021?  Ouch!  You aren't a Mac user, are you?  [I had a colleague who purchased an expensive PXI system with Windows 10 on the PXI controller because the NI salesman was there to "sell the product" -- I wonder if he ever got it running with his old software.  Thank goodness his name wasn't "Dan" ...].

Do you have the new PXI system?  What you'd need to do is copy over the old LabVIEW 8.6 code, open it in LabVIEW 2021, see how much LabVIEW breaks, then see what you can do about the Device Drivers (will your new Drivers be compatible with your old Code).  It should be possible to migrate the code, but after >15 years, this is likely to be an involved (possibly months) proposition.

Bob Schor

[ZYOng]

If you are indeed using an RT PXI, as opposed to the two Windows PXIs you shared, RTOS is pretty light-weighted. I have used LVRT 2018 on a very old PXI-8106 in the past without any issues.

[rolfk]

Only problem is that the RT system absolute certainly uses Pharlap ETS when booted up as RT and that has been discontinued by NI. There is a document somewhere detailing the discontinuation of Pharlap support as 2020 for CRIO and 2021 for PXI.

https://www.ni.com/content/dam/web/pdfs/phar-lap-rt-eol-roadmap.pdf

So it may be just barely possible to use LabVIEW 2021 for your PXI target as RT target. But with Windows 2000 on it it could be a very old system that has been discontinued long ago so the LabVIEW support for it might have been discontinued earlier. I don’t see the hardware type number in that report however.

[Bob_Schor]

Danny,

     Thank you for attaching the MAX Configuration Reports, but they don't contain the information I'm trying to learn about your system.  What I'd like is a picture (I usually hate pictures, but this one is worth 1000 words) like this one of my PC with an attached myRIO:

I made this by opening MAX, and in the left-hand pane (which is all I'm showing here), I found my Device (here, it is the myRIO) and expanded the Software Tab to show the installed Software.

You've got two PXI systems, and "old" and a "new" system.  It is not clear (to me) whether either, or both, are running Windows or a Real-Time OS.  Please answer the following Questions:

1. When you boot up into Windows, is Windows running on a PC that is connected to "Old PXI" via TCP/IP?
2.  If "Yes", please boot the Old PXI, open MAX on the PC, and try to create a picture like the one above, expanding Devices and Interfaces and expanding Software on the Old PXI.  Take a Picture.
3. If "No", you are running on "Old PXI", and everything MAX shows should be under "My System".  Expand Devices and Interfaces, and expand Software, and take a Picture.
4. Repeat the above for the "New PXI".

When I can see what you are using, I (maybe) can make some suggestions based on "knowledge and experience" instead of Guesswork.

Bob Schor

[Danmcg · Accepted solution]

Thank you for all of your suggestions. I managed to narrow the issue down to the compatibility of the R Series card not being compatible with the version of Labview that I was using. I had a PXI-7831 card which only seems to be compatible with Labview 2017 and no more recent. 

This unfortunately means that all the older R series cards that I have will be of no use if I am looking to use a newer version of Labview. 

I do have a more recent R series card that works for now.