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Registered Member #135
Joined: Sat Feb 11 2006, 12:06AM
Location: Anywhere is fine
Posts: 1735
I've been freaking out for about 6 months now trying to figure out 'how' to get the data out of my Tek 2430A scope for my Tesla Coil paperwork. Throughout this adventure I bought a couple of Tekmates and a GPIB USB card. I had no luck really with the Tekmates because of software, the one machine booted up but froze during its read cycle.
Today I finally got my little USB board in the mail. I spent some time reading the documentation and going through it, worrying all the way, am I doing this right??, the usual. At first I didn't have a clue what I was doing, but I knew I had to set both devices on the same channel, so I did that. Then there was Hyper Terminal. I've never used it so I didn't know what I was doing. I checked out the device manager which had my drivers installed on COM3, so I set that in Hyper Terminal, as well as setting it up so I could see what I was typing. After about an hour and a half of carefully switching switches, changing settings, and scratching my head, I established a dialogue with the scope. So i'm pretty happy with that. I have to go through the modes and see what my options are. I can dump the screen shots in Device mode from the scope if it see's the USB as a printer, so I need to figure out if I can convert that short file into something graphical.
I just wanted to say that talking to a GPIB instrument is possible on a budget. The board runs a little over $130, and you need to buy a USB cable if you don't have the AB one.
The board comes from here:
Setup was a bit frustrating for me because I'm totally new to this, but it may be worth it, I hope.
Registered Member #56
Joined: Thu Feb 09 2006, 05:02AM
Location: Southern Califorina, USA
Posts: 2445
I hate to tell you, but you probaly could have got a replica of that board for 1/2 that on ebay
In any case, as I noted before, the labview 'drivers' (graphical program things) are free, and I can get you labview to open them with. (pm me)
From there it is a matter of replacing all of the gpib interfaces with serial interfaces (since the 3rd party cards are recognised as a serial port, not a gpib port) and then you have a fully functional computer control.
BTW, if you really want to do gpib on a budget, get an old isa GPIB card for like $5 on ebay, and then dig up a computer with an ISA slot out of the junk pile (or pick up enough parts to make one on ebay for another like $20) and then install win2k and labview 6 and you are good to go
In any case, let me tell you that there is a very steep learning tool with any of this kind of stuff. But, once you have gotton arround you will be amazed at the things you can do
Registered Member #135
Joined: Sat Feb 11 2006, 12:06AM
Location: Anywhere is fine
Posts: 1735
One of the problems that I was having was exactly the GPIB interfacing. Like you say with the ISA card, well, the Tekmate is exactly that. It's an ancient IBM clone computer that's all GPIB. Unfortunately I couldn't get the tekmate I bought to read any floppies. I tried so dammed hard to get it to read and boot from dos 3.3, but it just wouldn't do it.
I just recently found the Tekmate with all of its software available on ebay, and bought it. I know that's kinda dumb, but with the software it will be able to transfer the waveform data to a diskette, and I should be able to use the tek. wave program to play with it.
I would have taken the ISA card out of the tekmate and put it in my computer, but alas, no ISA slot, only PCI. Believe me, I thought about it.
I have to have USB or the tekmate because I have to take measurements of the Tesla coil at college on site. My PC has too much crap connecting to it to be mobile.
I want to move up to using NI gear, but gradually. I need some experience with this stuff first. There is a class offered at college for GPIB, but im taking other things right now. Maybe i'll take it next semester.
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GPIB Connectivity
