Ni Visa Drivers
We are pleased to offer LabVIEW drivers for many of our instruments. Several versions are available for each instrument, suitable for use with LabVIEW versions 8.2, 7.1, 6.0, and 4.0.1 Drivers for earlier versions may usually be loaded in a later version, although LabVIEW will often report errors that need fixing before they will operate, so where possible use the driver that matches your version of LabVIEW.Each driver is supplied in both WinZip (.zip) and LabVIEW library file (.llb) or Virtual Instrument (.vi) archive formats. The former may be read directly by PC's running Windows XP or later operating systems, or by using the utility PKZIP - click here to locate this. LabVIEW library files can be opened directly from within LabVIEW and are suitable for use on platforms other than the PC.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. Model NumberWinZip File (.zip) for WindowsUncompressed LabVIEW Library file (.llb) or Virtual Instrument fiile (.vi) for Mac, Sun, Unix, etc135105 or 51065109 or 51105209 or 20, 7225, 7225BFP, 7260 or 72657230Not AvailableNot Available7270Not AvailableNot Available7280 or 7280BFP7124Not AvailableNot Available731 (2 X 4161A plus, optionally, 1 x 9650A)EclipseFastFlight-2Not AvailableNot AvailableDrivers suitable for use with LabVIEW 4.0.1 and later.
Model NumberWinZip File (.zip) for WindowsUncompressed LabVIEW Library file (.llb) or Virtual Instrument fiile (.vi) for Mac, Sun, Unix, etc3820Not AvailableNot Available3830Not AvailableNot Available51135105 or 51065109 or 51105209 or 20, 7225, 7225BFP, 7260 or 72657230Not AvailableNot Available7270Not AvailableNot Available7280 or 7280BFP7124Not AvailableNot Available731 (2 X 4161A plus, optionally, 1 x 9650A)EclipseNot AvailableNot AvailableFastFlight-2Not AvailableNot Available.
SolutionFollow these steps to communicate with a USB device:. You need to get the device detected by Windows and make sure that NI-VISA is assigned as the device driver. In Windows this binding is done using.inf files. Each USB device has a unique vendor and model number. The.inf file contains the vendor and model number for the devices it supports and the driver that handles the devices.
When a Plug and Play device is connected to the PC, Windows reads the device information and uses the vendor and model number to search through the.inf files. When a matching.inf file is located Windows binds the driver listed as the owner to the device. To communicate to a device with NI-VISA you need to create the.inf file that will bind the NI-VISA driver to the device. Fortunately, the NI-VISA package has a utility called VISA Driver Development Wizard that automatically generates the.inf file, if you provide the appropriate vendor and model numbers. Refer to the links below for more information on the VISA Driver Development Wizard.
Once the.inf file is in place (in the hidden SYSTEMDIRinf directory), plug in the USB device and Windows should go through the hardware detection wizard and show NI-VISA as the driver for device. After the installation, the device should show up in the Measurement & Automation Explorer (MAX) with the appropriate resource name. You can now use the two additional VISA functions for USB, viUsbControlIn and viUsbControlOut. These functions give you access to the USB device's control pipe, which every USB device has by default. You can set up communication with the device using the VISA properties.
Ni Visa Runtime
For more information on the USB specific attributes.NI-VISA will scan the device from any open endpoints. If there are any endpoints open for the Interrupt or Bulk pipes, the endpoint attribute for each pipe will show the lowest open endpoint. If the attribute contains -1 it means that there are no endpoints open for the pipe. From this point on any communication setup with the device is specific to that device. Additional InformationUSB RAW mode gives you access to the low level communication mechanisms of the USB specification.
Since NI-VISA just exposes the mechanisms already defined in the specification, it is assumed that the user is familiar with the USB specification and programming USB devices. NI-VISA USB RAW mode supports Interrupt, Bulk and Control data transfers. Isochronous transfers are not supported.Additionally, communicating with a USB device using NI-VISA USB RAW support is very device specific, which requires from the user detailed knowledge of how the device operates. In this sense it is similar to register-level programming using the NI-VISA PXI support.
NI-VISA provides the communication channel to the device, but the meaning of the data is device-specific.NI-VISA supports two modes for USB communication: USBTMC and RAW mode. This article gives some information on the VISA USB RAW mode.