LabView VI for HP 4145 : diode measurement IV

[GuentherS · Accepted solution]

Hi George

I can't see what commands you are sending to the HP4145, so here just a few general remarks for that instrument

Make sure your communication is ok. HP4145 likes to have a CR/LF after each message. To test that, send an "ID" command to the instrument, it should answer with the model type and some software revision numbers. As long as this does not work, nothing else will.

When you turn on the HP4145, there are some default setting on which SMU is VAR1 and so on. If you define just SMU1 as VAR1, the other channels will retain their default settings and chances are there is a second channel defined as "VAR1". This will of course result in an error. Define all the other channels as "CONST"

Hope this helps

Good luck

Guenther

[GeorgeRH · Accepted solution]

Hi Guenther:

Thanks a lot for the feedback. I can confirm that I have communication between the equipment and LabView through the GPIB-USB-B interface: I get the ID of the equipment in the NI MAX and also any change I apply to the" HP4145B Example.vi" is seen then on the equipment itself..

Moreover it seems I have managed to get rid of the error by adding a Time Delay function between the "Send Message" block and" Receive Message" block. As a result I got rid of the "error 6" and now the measured data which appears on the display of the equipment is being transfered to the "Graphics plot.vi" in HP4145N Example.vi. From there I exported the graph using "Copy to clipboard" command and saved this data into a .txt file. Seems it works this way.

And regarding "VAR1" you are perfectly right, SMU3 also takes VAR1. Therefore, I have later disabled all other channels leaving active only SMU1.

Many thanks again for the feedback.

Regards,

George.

[cici2021]

hi George, 

hope you're well. I am getting stuck in the same erroer 6 problem with HP4145B as well. Your experience is really helpful! But I am just a little bite confused about the adding Time Deley function bewteen the Send Message and Recieve Message. Could you please give a detailed introduction to this step？

Best,

Cici

[NIquist]

This thread is 5 years old but they probably used something like the Time Delay above.  See how it will cause the data flow to wait for one second between the write and read.  Usually this is not required but some hardware needs a small delay.  I usually use 100mSec or so.

[cstorey]

A delay isn't the way to do it.  Set a long timeout (60s), transfer the data, reset the timeout (1s).  I do this with all of my 4155 code and it works without error.

See this Knowledge Base article - https://knowledge.ni.com/KnowledgeArticleDetails?id=kA00Z000000PAQKSA4&l=en-CA

Craig

[kannans]

Is it possible to show the VI with the your steps as I am not in to Labview Development but trying to use the available one to get a working Plot output 

thanks

kannan

[cstorey]

Your question isn't very clear.  But you can start with the LabVIEW 4145 driver from here - http://sine.ni.com/apps/utf8/niid_web_display.model_page?p_model_id=1765

Study the examples and try things out.  If you run into trouble or can't get things to work post your code (start a new thread, don't piggy back on old thread) with your specific questions.

Good luck,

Craig