Prologix Fze

[Giorgio Aguilar]

Iam wondering if anyone has expirience controlling gpib instruments through labview using a gbip to usb controller (prologix). Specificlly, I am looking to controller an agilent 8753ES VNA. THis model is kind of old, but I think it should still work. So far, I installed the cirtual com port (vcp) drivers for the device, and it now recognizes the prologix controller as com4. However, I am not sure how to access the device connected to com4. Agilent i/o doesn't recognize it (although I am not sure it has drivers for it anyway). I think I need the computer the recognize it as a gpio hub instead of a com port, but I'm not sure how to do that. Do I need the d2xx drivers? Using a tool on prologix web site, I communicate with the adapter poll the gpib address 16 (which I set the vna to), and the poll responds. On the vna side, I have set the controller address to 5, gp-ib diag to on, and a talker/listener. Currently, the T light is lit up, meaning it is talking (as opposed to r,l,or s). Any help would be appreciated. If I could get it a visa address, that would be great.

The VCP driver emulates a standard serial port on the host computer such that the Prologix GPIB-USB computer can be communicated with as a standard serial (RS-232) device. Virtual COM port (VCP) drivers cause the USB device to appear as an additional COM port available to the PC. Application software can access the USB device in the same way as it would access a standard COM port.

The D2XX driver allows direct access to the controller via a DLL interface. D2XX drivers allow direct access to the USB device through a DLL. Application software can access the USB device through a series of DLL function calls. The functions available are listed in the D2XX Programmer's Guide document which is available from the Documentssection of this site. Programming examples using the D2XX drivers and DLL can be found in the Projects section of this site.

So I have the driver installed for the gpib to usb, and it appears as a com port, however Agilent I/O doesn't recognize it, niether does Agilent intulink. I'm not exactly sure how to get the actual device to work.

One of the problems of this controller is: the software interface used is completely different from agilent and NI implementations, meaning you have to modify all drivers that are available from Agilent/NI/Keithley etc.

The device is working if you detect it as a com port. There is no way that it will ever be detected as a GPIB controller by Agilent or NI software. There is no reason at all to be using Agilent software anyway. There is example code on the Prologix site with VISA serial functions. Also, search the forum for 'Prologix'.

Well, it appears I misunderstood the manual I read yesterday. It was my impression that the prologix controller had to have a separate ++addr (address) from the instrument. However, when I changed the gpib address to 16 using ++addr 16, suddenly it responds to *idn?

Once I was able send commands to the device through the usb converter, both the intulink software and agilent io recognized it as the proper device when I restarted the computer. It looks like the problem is solved.

I am trying to control several Agilent HP-6033A power supplies and an HP-6681A power supply. I have a Prologix GPIB-Ethernet controller on each. I have done a search on "prologix ethernet" with zero results, however, there are a number of Prologix USB-Ethernet references. Is there a reason no one is using the Prologix GPIB-ETHERNET controller? This is a project I have inherited and I'm trying to troubleshoot some intermittent problems.

I'm not sure why no one is using this particular controller, other than the fact that it may not be VXI-11 complient. In order to communicate with the device through NI-VISA, it will need to supprt LAN instrumentation protocol, or VXI-11. If it does, then you shouldn't have a problem using it with your project.

I looked through the manual for the Prologix GPIB-ENET device you mentioned, and I didn't see anything related to VXI-11. It did, however, mention controlling the device in a programming environment like LabVIEW. I would recommend contacting Prologix and asking them to clarify on this matter.

My group uses the Prologix GPIB-ETHERNET controller for controlling two Keithley devices in a Visual Studio 2008 .NET application. To achieve a sample rate under 200ms, we have to place one GPIB-ETHERNET on each Keithley device. The device was very easy to program using TCP/IP calls and required no drivers from Prologix.

On our latest application, we switched to the NI ENET-1000 because the Prologix device doesn't have a certificate like the NI ENET-1000 has. Unlike the Prologix, I must install the NI 422 driver and MAX. I can easily control two Keithley devices with one ENET-1000. Next week, I intend to see if I can control 4-5 Keithleys simultaneously in under 100ms.

No matter what the IP address of the computer is versus the Prologix, the Prologix net configuration utility can find the device. If the NI device is not in the same subnet, the computer cannot find it.

Hi I have a prologix USB/GPIB controller that I aim to use to control several different instruments. Currently I followed another post that seemed to have the correct method of talking to an instrument.

Unfortunately I am unable to even send a basic *IDN? command to the instrument. I've tried talking to several different instruments to make sure that it wasnt a problem with an instrument and I've had no luck with any of them.

Ive combined the linked posts solution with the Prologix Sample that is also linked in his post to create a vi to just send an *IDN? command. I should also say that I could not get the Prologix Sample VI working so this is what lead to me modifying their vi. All drivers are installed from ftdchip and I see the USB Serial Port (COM3) installed in my device manager.

I can get the prologix USB/GPIB to switch from Listen to Talk but it seems impossible to get it to switch back to Talk. Even if I just send a ++addr 0 command. Im not sure what I need to do to get the *IDN? command to send to the instrument.

I know that it is not a NI product, but the program that I am using to talk to it is an NI product. If I were to go to Prologix they could nearly do the same thing and say that "Labview is not a prologix product so why not go ask them how to program in it."

Have a look at the attached VI, it uses the Prologix GPIB-Ethernet converter. Probably the reason why it doesn't work for lots of users is the TCP/IP Socket Class must be manually selected on your VISA Ctrl/Constant Handle, (the default is I/O Session INSTR but NI MAX knows nothing about Prologix). Moreover and beyond the point, you can send the instrument via Prologix a raw TCP/IP packet and get a response but that doesn't give you a VISA handle to use already written drivers.

It appears no trouble on Visa Send but VISA Recieve would time out no matter the setup of the Prologix GPIB - Ethernet. you need some code modification it appears to make this work. All transmission (VISA Sends) must be appended with line-feed character and VISA property "Message Setting : Suppress End Enable" must be set to False (btw TCP socket default is True). Once I did this, VISA Recieve stopped timing out. All other VISA property setting had no change.

I'm wondering if this a bug on Prologix adapter? Per Prologix Configuratoin Tool or in the manual is strips all end characters and put a termination character on end (but no mention of what happens on Receive from Instrument side). Can a Prologix person tell us.

I noticed a Prologix employee posting info on another thread regarding there product. So not totally oiut of the question. This thread is about inferfacing there product using LV and I don't see a Prologix forum of there own.

After working with the ENET-1000 for several weeks on Dell laptops with Windows 7, I would prefer to stay with the Prologix. With the Prologix, my application just works for days without any issues. With the ENET-1000, I have all kinds of testing going on trying to figure out why my laptops will magically just stop working with a hard disk not found error. With a power cycle of the computer, all is well.

"I'm very excited by the gpib-to-ethernet adapter. But there's some weirdness in getting them to work:

Initially, the adapter shows up at ip address 0.0.0.0. This is NOT a legal address, and most "standard" ip-protocol software refuses such an address. Instead, please choose a canonical default address... say 192.168.1.x ...or anything typical AND legal.

Even worse, the initial port seems to be a random number, not 1234 or a typical open port. All of the computers I use nowadays have firewalls running, and only after multiple days of struggling to "see" the adapter did I try turning off the firewall.... There it was, spewing out udp packets! Please change the "random port" to 1234, or better yet, a typical open port #.

I am OSX as much as possible, and while I managed to run your netfinder and configurator undier an emulator, your software could be implemented EASILY with a web-server (which would also be port 80)... and therefore platform independent. Look at ANY hub, switch, serial server, etc on the market today; they ALL follow this standard.

I'm still eager to put my gpib-enet adapters to use, but your software engineers made a couple very poor decisions instead of following established standards.

I welcome a response, but please don't put me on any mailing lists."

Sorry for the confusion... The quotes at the beginning of paragraph 2 and the end of my note was an attempt to suggest that the entire thing was my email to prologix. But I realize that someone quickly scanning the message might not pick up that nuance, so in hindsight, I should've rewritten the entire thing into the third person. I like NI software engineers. I don't like Prologix sofware enginers. Sorry again.

Apologies for taking up space on the NI board for what is clearly a Prologix support issue. However, since the original poster posted his email here, we might as well post our reply here too for closure. Thank you for the space and keep up the good work.

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