Cannot Find Your Instrument During a Scan for Instruments
The Scan for GPIB Instruments functionality of Measurement & Automation Explorer can be helpful in quickly testing your GPIB setup. Clicking this button in Measurement & Automation Explorer conducts a FindLstn test for all GPIB addresses 031 to find active listeners on the bus. Measurement & Automation Explorer attempts to identify these instruments by sending them *IDN? queries and then performing reads. While not all instruments respond to the *IDN? query, most should be detected by the initial FindLstn test.
If your instruments are not detected during this scan:
- Check your cabling. GPIB has strict distance requirements. (Refer to Configuration Requirements.) Make sure the cable is securely connected to both your instrument and your GPIB interface. Try another cable if possible, especially a shorter one.
- If more than one instrument is connected, disconnect all but one instrument. An instrument with a bad GPIB interface could prevent other instruments from communicating on the bus.
- Remember that GPIB address 0 is usually reserved for the controller (National Instruments GPIB boards default to address 0), so if your controller has an address of 0, make sure your instrument has a different address. You must set the address of your instrument on its front panel or via dip switches somewhere on the instrument. Refer to the instrument documentation to set the GPIB address.