Hello,
I am currently evaluating which NI DAQ hardware to acquire to test a motor controller drive system.
I wish to exercise about 30 different terminals on the motor controller using the cDAQ 9178 using the necessary modules.
My major concern at the moment is the fact that the cDAQ-9178 only has one USB port available which connects to the PC. After speaking to an NI application engineer I was advised that the USB-cDAQ, doesn’t have a RS232 port, and the RS232 serial modules are only compatible with cRIO, not cDAQ, so there is not a C-Series module for cDAQ that provides RS232 communication. Therefore the RS232 port which is situated on the motor controller would have to be connected directly to my PC. This mean's that there are two USB ports occupied on the PC. So does this cause compatibility issues with LabVIEW in terms of synchronization and functionality. I feel that timing and sequence will be a crucial feature for the DAQ to endure.
The RS232 will be used for non standard protocols which I want LabVIEW to communicate with as well as LabVIEW being used to manipulate terminals. I am currently trying to find some useful examples on the forum that will illustrate something similar to that, i.e. a VI that illustrates how to read/write script file language to easily manipulate the terminal configurations.
Perhaps you may have suggestions as to:
a. Is the compact DAQ chassis suitable for what I am trying to achieve? - if not what should I use?
b. What problem may I encounter with the above setup?
c. Any better solutions for what I propose to test.
d. Some similar VI example of how to achieve the system above.
Many Thanks