Running the Getting Started VI Interactively (Selecting the GPIB Address, Serial Port, and Logical Address)

To verify communication with your instrument and test a typical programmatic instrument operation, you should first open the Getting Started VI. Look over each of the controls and set them appropriately. Generally, with the exception of the address field, the defaults for most controls will be sufficient for your first run. You will need to set the address appropriately. If you do not know the address of your instrument, refer to Measurement & Automation Explorer for help. After running the VI, check to see that reasonable data was returned and an error was not reported in the error cluster. The most common reasons for the Getting Started VI to fail are:

  1. NI-VISA is not installed. If you did not choose this as an option during your LabVIEW installation, you will need to install it before rerunning your Getting Started VI.
  2. The instrument address was incorrect. The Getting Started VI requires you to specify the correct address for your instrument. If you are not certain of your instrument's address, launch the Measurement & Automation Explorer or the Find Resource function. Refer to Chapter 20, VISA in LabVIEW, of the LabVIEW Measurements Manual for more information about syntax for the address string.
  3. The instrument driver does not support the exact model you are using. You might need to double-check that the instrument driver supports the instrument model you are using.

Once you have verified basic communication with your instrument using the Getting Started VI, you probably want to customize instrument control for your needs. If your application needs are similar to the Getting Started VI, the simplest means of creating a customized VI is to save a copy of the Getting Started VI by selecting Save As from the File menu. You can change the default values on the front panel by selecting Make Current Values Default from the Operate menu. Block diagram changes might include changing the constants wired to the Application VI or other subVIs. As mentioned earlier, the block diagram of the Getting Started VI generally consists of three VIs: Initialize VI, Application Function VI, and Close VI.