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Ethernet Instrument Control Tutorial
Ethernet Instrument Control Tutorial
Publish Date: May 03, 2018 | 31 Ratings | 2.68 out of 5 | Print | 5 Customer Reviews | Submit
your review
Overview
This tutorial is meant to serve as a starting point for using NI-VISA to communicate with an
Ethernet device. It will provide a brief overview of both NI-VISA and the Ethernet bus followed
by a tutorial on setting up an Instrument Control System based on the Ethernet bus architecture.
After reading this tutorial, you should be able to install an Ethernet device and use NI-VISA to
communicate with that device, as long as you understand the device communication protocol.
Table of Contents
1. Overview of Ethernet and NI-VISA
2. Configuring NI-VISA to Control Your Ethernet Instrument
3. Related Links
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2. Configuring NI-VISA to Control Your Ethernet Instrument
This section walks through the steps for configuring your Ethernet-based instrument with NI-
VISA on a Windows-based computer. At this point, NI-VISA should already be installed on your
computer.
Open a command prompt by navigating to Start»Run, and then typing cmd in the Open
field. Select OK.
Open NI MAX and expand the My System tree. There are two methods for adding your
instrument as a VISA resource. One is to select Devices and Interfaces and then click the
Create New button that appears at the top of MAX. The other option is to right-click on
Devices and Interfaces and select Create New from the context menu that appears.
Next you will choose the type of TCP/IP resource you would like to add. If your instrument
conforms to the VXI-11 LAN or LXI instrument specifications, you can select to either auto-
detect it or add the IP address for your instrument manually. Otherwise, you will need to add
your Ethernet device as a Raw Socket. With this option, you will have to enter an IP address
and port number for your instrument.
If your instrument does not comply to the VXI-11 LAN or LXI instrument specifications you
will need to select the third option, Manual Entry of Raw Socket. After selecting this option
you will need to enter the IP address and Port Number for you device. The Port Number used
by your device should be indicated in its Ethernet Interface Specification. This can usually be
found in the device user manual.
Once you complete the wizard, you will have a new VISA TCP/IP Resource added in MAX.
You can then select Open VISA Test Panel to test the communication with your device.
From the Input/Output pane of the test panel, you can query your instrument with any
command your instrument will recognize.
You can also use the newly created VISA TCP/IP Resource Name in LabVIEW to
communicate with your Ethernet device.
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3. Related Links
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Customer Reviews
5 Reviews | Submit your review
Is it possible to control an ethernet device with NI-VISA in Apple OSX? I see LOADS of
Windows examples; no OSX examples.
VISA libraries required for comms with a serial device via RS232-ENET box? - Feb 11,
2009
Should software that controlled the device with a direct serial connection have to be modified to
use VISA in order for the software control to work?
Can I use UDP for ethernet communication or must I add TCP/IP protocols to the UDP protocol?
Can you specify the UDP protocol required by the cRIO to communicate via ethernet to a
"network" consisting of a cRIO and a single additional computer? Thanks.
If your instrument is assigned an address via DHCP, you should be able to ping the instrument
by name. The response will show the IP address of the device.
Please add information on how to discover an instrument that is assigned an IP address via
DHCP.
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