Table of Contents

• Analog and Digital IO Devices
• NI-DAQmx Resources
• NI-DAQmx Applications
• PyVisa
• LabView Introduction
• LabView VIs

Analog and Digital IO Devices

• Data sheet for the 6221 and other M series PCI boards, and a shorter version for the 6220 and 6221 boards.

NI-DAQmx Resources

• The NI-DAQ family of libraries for NI instruments can be accessed through the ctypes module. This cookbook article from SciPy translates a sample C program for analog signal acquisition into Python.
• Help with the C API is not available as a pdf but only through the help menu: programs > national instruments > NIDAQmx > C reference help.
• find_devices.py shows how many devices are present.
• A nice explanation: using python for test and measurement. The programs measure.py and plot_example1.py use the module contAcquireNChan.py.
• Some useful forum exchanges: passing data to NI-DAQmx from Python and numpy via ctypes and multi-channel reads from a USB 6008 using ctypes and NI-DAQ.
• For Java, Nidaq is a wrapper-style class used to make calls to the NI-DAQmx dll.
• A very rough PDF of the C Reference is posted here.

NI-DAQmx Applications

• This 3 Volt, 100 Hz waveform was acquired by Acq_IncClk.py, a modified version of the cookbook article to allow for plotting with matplotlib and saving the data as a text file.
• To read a single analog input channel: ain_nidaqmx.py uses the module nidaqmx.py.
• Digital trigger with analog input: ain_nidaqmx_trig.py.

PyVisa

• PyVisa can be used with XP to communicate with VISA compliant instruments. As the documentation shows, this is accomplished using a LabView Visa compatible DLL.

LabView Introduction

Test drive LabVIEW. Open LabVIEW and use Find Examples to run these VIs:
• Moonlanding
• Power Spectrum Measurement
• Temperature System Demo

Labview Introduction

• Read Introduce and Connect sections in Online tutorial
• Watch NI demos on front panel and block diagram
  • At home: Watch NI Online demo (first 13 slides)
• Build VI for temperature control (TempControl.vi) - In Apply section of Online tutorial

CNX Online tutorial: Introduction

• LabVIEW (Read)
• LabVIEW Environment (Read)
• Front Panel (Read)
• Block Diagram (Read)
• Acquiring a Signal VI (Build AcqSignal.vi) (same as Ch. 1 in GSLV)
• Dataflow Programming (Read)
• Express Filter VI (Do)
• LabVIEW Documentation Resources (Read)
• Reduce Samples VI (Build ReduceSamples.vi) (same as Ch. 2 in GSLV)

LabView VIs

• Annoyance
• Oscilloscope
• Daniel Gruss - Searching VI