Selecting an Instrument

Selecting an Instrument

Note  Before you begin communicating with the instrument, ensure that the instrument is properly connected and configured. Refer to the documentation for the instrument for information about connection and configuration.

Use a Select Instrument step to select the instrument with which you want to communicate and to configure basic instrument properties.

Complete the following steps to select an instrument.

1. The Select Instrument step automatically appears in the Step Sequence window when you launch the Instrument I/O Assistant. Select the instrument you want to communicate with or the port the instrument is connected to from the Select an instrument pull-down menu.

   Note  If you are using an Ethernet instrument, you must first configure the instrument through Measurement & Automation Explorer (MAX) for the instrument to appear in the Select an instrument pull-down menu. Alternatively, you can enter the VISA instrument resource descriptor directly in the Select an instrument text box.

   Note  If you recently connected a new instrument to the computer and it does not appear in the Select an instrument pull-down menu, click the Refresh instrument list button.

2. Click the Properties button to configure basic instrument properties.
3. In the Timeout text box, enter the number of milliseconds you want the Instrument I/O Assistant to wait for each step to complete before the step returns an error.
4. From the Termination character pull-down menu, select the character that signifies the last character of the command for the instrument. You also can select <custom> to enter a termination character in the Termination character text box.
5. From the Code generation type pull-down menu, select the type of code you want the Instrument I/O Assistant to generate.
6. (Optional) If you are using a GPIB instrument and you want the Instrument I/O Assistant to check for 488.2 errors, place a checkmark in the Do 488.2 error checking checkbox. If the instrument supports error querying, enter the error query command for the instrument in the Command to retrieve error strings text box. Refer to the instrument documentation for more information about valid instrument commands.

After you select the instrument you want to communicate with, add Write, Read and Parse, or Query and Parse steps to the step sequence to send commands to the instrument and read the response.