Setup during development

[jyang72211]

Hi all,

I have a test system in VB that I would like to convert into LabVIEW.  The system has a GPIB connection and a couple of serial communcaiton port.  The system doesn't have labview on it, and eventually, I just want to put an executable on it.  It would be nice if I can use my labtop for development, but my labtop doesn't have serial nor GPIB.  What would be the best way to approach this problem?  Can I somehow connect to the current system through my laptop, so that I use the labview on my labtop while using all the communcation ports on the system?  Thanks!

Yik

[jon_mcbee]

It seems that developing on the target system would be easiest.  But if you dont want to do that you could write an executable that reads and writes to the serial and GPIB ports, and use shared variables to communicate the write commands and the data readback from the target system to your laptop.  I dont know of any way to plug your laptop into your target machine in order to use the target machines ports.  But if anyone does you will find them on this forum 😉

[ctardi]

Can you develop most of your program on your laptop, and when it becomes time for test & debug, just put the evaluation version of labview on the target system?

[AdnanZ]

If you are ready to spend a little bit of money, then you could get a USB solution for serial and GPIB from NI. When you plug in these boards, they will replicate a serial and GPIB port respectively and you could get your programming done the way you would have done on the target machine. You can then create an executable and use it on the target machine. In this case you don't have to worry about programming with shared variables and getting the target and host machines on the network.

[Dennis_Knutson]

If you use IVI drivers, then you can run them in simulation mode. This will allow you to debug much of the program but since you are limited to the types of signals you can simulate and of course there is no real output from any instrument, you still would need to install LabVIEW on the target pc for final debug. 

There is an option in MAX to make local VISA resources available on a network. You would have to install MAX and NI-VISA on the pc with the instruments. Then in the VISA Options, you change the security to allow specific ip's or all systems to have access. On the development pc, use MAX to add a remote system. I believe that you would then have full access to the remote instruments and ports just like as if they available locally. When you deploy it, the only thing that would need to change is the VISA Resource Names. Of course, when you use the remote instruments, you have to make sure that the existing program is not running.

[jyang72211]

That's so awesome.  I tried the VISA sever, and it works (at least I can see the ports on my systems, and I assume that I can control these ports remotely).  Thanks!  Is there a good document out there that talks about VISA and IVI?  I don't have a good grasp on that subject.  Thanks!