We are pleased to offer free LabVIEW drivers for most of the computer controllable instruments in our product range, suitable for use with LabVIEW version 8.2 and later.
What's Included?
In accordance with National Instrument's recommendations, all drivers that operate instruments via GPIB, RS232, USB, or Ethernet interfaces use the NI VISA software extensions. The advantage of this is that they are portable to any platform supported by LabVIEW and NI VISA, not only the PC, and that it is possible to build systems using multiple instances of the same instrument. For example, two model 7230's used for ratiometric spectroscopy can be operated from the same program. Note, though that the drivers for the models 3820, 3830, Eclipse and FastFlight-2 use an underlying ActiveX control for instrument communication, and hence will only work on computers running Windows.
Each driver includes a basic VI to handle communications to and from the instrument. This generally takes the form of a VISA Write/Read VI that will write any of the commands listed in an instrument's instruction manual to the instrument and handles the response, if any. Complex responses, such as curve downloads and responses to compound commands are decoded correctly, and the VI operates via any of the interfaces supported by the instrument (Ethernet, USB, RS232, or GPIB). It also generally determines the instrument's status (e.g. overload and reference lock) and makes these available as Boolean outputs. Other basic VI's are supplied to open and close VISA sessions, to determine the instrument's status, firmware revision and perform a reset operation.
The next level of VI's support the different instrument controls and read the required outputs. These VI's save the last setting sent to the instrument so that if called repeatedly they do not generate unnecessary commands over the interface, thereby speeding up programs that use them. At the top level the drivers include some Application Examples and a Getting Started VI. The latter operates essentially as a "static interface" routine, and is a good template to use for building your own program, while the Application Examples generally take the form of a soft front panel and show how the lower level VIs can be combined to yield a useful program.
To download the driver, click on the required file name and, when prompted, choose to save it to your computer.
Drivers suitable for use with LabVIEW 8.2 and later: