Weiss driver

[Tim_Butler]

Hello,

   I'm trying to control a Weiss WTL34/70 environmental chamber through LabVIEW over ethernet.  I've seen the serial drivers but don't think that these will do the job. Has anyone any experience of controlling a Weiss oven with TCP/IP and are there any drivers available?

     Cheers,

           Tim

[smercurio_fc]

I found no Weiss drivers on IDNet. Where did you get the drivers? Were they written using VISA? If so, then they should be mostly OK. You would need to use a different resource name and delete the serial port-related stuff. Even if they weren't it's not difficult to convert them to VISA, especially if you're using a newer version of LabVIEW, since the serial port VIs in newer versions are simply wrappers around VISA calls.

[Tim_Butler]

Hello, thanks for the reply - the drivers, by JB, are right here. They are indeed VISA when you drill down, so I'll try your suggestion of knocking out the serial comms stuff and take it from there. I'll let you know how I get on.

   Cheers,

         Tim  

[smercurio_fc]

I took a quick look at those drivers. There are 3 top-level VIs, and they basically funnel down to the "Send and receive command" VI. This VI uses the Serial Port Write, Bytes at Serial Port, and Serial Port Read VIs. These are all wrappers around VISA. Thus, at a minimum you'd replace the Serial Port Write with a VISA Write and the Serial Port Read with a VISA Read. The Bytes at Serial Port is not used in TCP/IP. All of the COM port controls on the front panels of all the VIs would need to be replaced with a VISA Resource control. The one issue that you're likely to have is knowing when to stop reading. If you know the exact number of bytes that you're supposed to get, then you'd wire that to the VISA Read. Otherwise the responses would need to end with some sort of character, and you can configure the VISA Message Based Settings for the Termination Character. If you plop down the VISA Configure Serial Port VI on a block diagram and look at its block diagram you'll see these two properties being set.

[kcop]

Hi Tim,

I am currently going through the same issue as you and was wondering how you got on?

I have managed on many occasions to communcate with other chambers having RS232 communcation, however these were older models and I am wondering if they kept the same protocols.

For the record the chamber I am using is with a SIMPAC controller, whereas all other communcation was effected using the SIMCON and SIMPATI controllers

[Adrie]

Hi,

At this moment Weiss is building a temperature room for me with a SIMPAC controller with LAN interface and I wonder or you could help me with a LabView driver?

[Dennis_Knutson]

I don't know who your are asking in such an old thread. If you want a LabVIEW driver written, find an Alliance member or post on the job board - http://forums.ni.com/t5/LabVIEW-Job-Openings/bd-p/JobPost

If you just need a little help with code that you have written, you need to be specific and attach the code.

[Tim_Butler]

Hello Adrie,

   I did actually manage to get this going eventually, but it was a Simpati interface rather than Simpac. I found the most difficult part to be getting the Simpati interface set up and communicating with the oven. Took several days to get it sorted out I think. Did you get LabVIEW drivers supplied with the system?

     Tim

[Adrie]

Hi Tim,

 No I didn't buy the LabView drivers for Simpac. I have some experence with LabView drivers for instruments (Most IEEE and RS232). So I thought building a driver for this temperature room using Simpac couldn't be such a problem.  Also the supplier of the temperature room said it was easy to build, and the funcionality I ask is limited. But your right, mostly the difficult part is the getting the interface running. I will try to get it running and if I have problems I will get back to this Post.

Thanks for your comment and maybe I come back to you.

[tommyhlw]

Hi Adrie,

 I'm looking for a rather simple VI just for setting/reading temperature/humidity

Could you manage to get a labview vi working?