BenchVue 3.0 now available – ask the BenchVue team anything

[HighVoltage]

And now for Sid, this is my 34401A measuring a 10V reference, look at the text on the left side and on top, on top should be this value: 10.00004 and its shows 000010 VDC how about silly...
But actually I think something else 

Kind regarts,
Blackdog

This silly thing was pointed out by me years ago and still stayed with BV all these years.
May be it is only indicating the range instead of the actual value instrument value.

[blackdog]

Hi HighVoltage,

There are so manny "bugs" in BenchVue that's my opinion, that there is absolutly no quality control by people who know there stuf about multimeters and how to use them.
This is really silly if look at the interface of the 34461x series multimeter, KeySight dit a realy good job there!, so the knowledge is in the company, why not use it...

There is a big difference (grand canyon) between what softwarecoders think is right and what users find what is intuitively in a interface.
For the errors i pointed out in my pictures, i should fired the coders, thats why i name them "Hobby Coders" too silly for words.
How dare you to push out this code, with al the bugs... and after a year you have to pay again for hopefully les bugs...

Kind regarts,
Blackdog

[kaz911]

I think a lot of the mishaps in display is due to the usage of MathLab as the driver.

That is also one of the reasons for the bloat. Who builds a 500MB installable with so few functions in them? Only people who rely exclusively on a mish mash of 3rd party products put together with band aid.

But I find in general both Keysight & Tektronix PC software to be full of garbage to say the least. I have no idea how you can make software that does so little take so much space and be so slow. I wish they would send their programmers off to a isolated island for 3 years - and ONLY with computers w 1GB RAM and 100GB hard drive - and tell them they can come back when they have some high performance code that works on that platform. Tektronix is getting better though but very slowly.

And one more lesson - if something is not needed all the time - DO NOT START IT AS A BACKGROUND. AKA Keysight License "Server" and others. That should just be a DLL that can be started on a license request. No reason at ALL for that to stay alive when no other tools requesting license data is running - so no reason to install it as a service in the first place. It is a bad habit inherited from buggers like Adobe. But if you then do make a license server - then make it small and efficient - not a 100MB RAM consuming constant running background process. I can understand the NETWORK license server would need to run 24/7/365 - but not a License "client"

Yes - in slightly more polite terms than some of my fellow EEVBlog members here - please get some coders on board who can code real software and not just rely on 3rd party libraries and plugins and environments. Yes it cost more but as it is now - I'm not ready to pay anything for BV - it is still a toy - or what we in my old job would have called a "Proof of Concept Prototype".

Here I think the the best term would be "Yes - you have made the breadboard version and it kind of works - now move it on to prototype and then production"

[HighVoltage]

Tektronix is getting better though but very slowly.

To be fair, the Tektronix / Keithley software for the Keithley DMM7510 is horrible in functionality, interface and speed.
BV is light years ahead of that.

There are some nice features in BV that I am using all the time and it helps me greatly in my job. But what I really don't understand is that many silly bugs that have been pointed out by me and many others have not been fixed over the years.

[blackdog]

Hi kaz911,

One of my Dutch forum members has this under al his messages: The mind is a funny thing. Sometimes it needs a good whack on the side of the head to jar things loose
And several times i heard that the Coders of BenchVue were very proud of their work,
so i think than about the text of my forum member and to make it more clear i took the time to explane myself with a lot of pictures to prove it.

And I do not want to be rude, but sometimes it helps to be as direct as possible to make people understand what the problem is.

Kind regards, <= yes i mean this!
Bram

[kaz911]

Tektronix is getting better though but very slowly.

To be fair, the Tektronix / Keithley software for the Keithley DMM7510 is horrible in functionality, interface and speed.
BV is light years ahead of that.

There are some nice features in BV that I am using all the time and it helps me greatly in my job. But what I really don't understand is that many silly bugs that have been pointed out by me and many others have not been fixed over the years.

My reference to better is SignalVu-PC - that has gotten better but still far from great...   But I still absolutely hate the VISA driver packages from both Keysight & Tektronix. One should think it was possible to write "Serial Over Ethernet" applications that did not take up so much space and was so slow.

[Sid.BenchVueTeam]

Question -> Is using a VNC on a PC to remote into the local PC using BenchVue a common use case or it is occasional ? Any reason for not just installing BenchVue on the remote PC and connecting directly to the instruments ( besides lag ).
Sid

Hi Messtechniker,

I use Microsoft RDC for viewing BV, no problems with that.
But, i wil test Real VNC for you and get back about if it works.

Kind regarts,
Blackdog

[KE5FX]

Question -> Is using a VNC on a PC to remote into the local PC using BenchVue a common use case or it is occasional ? Any reason for not just installing BenchVue on the remote PC and connecting directly to the instruments ( besides lag ).
Sid

I spend a lot of time accessing my PC via my iPhone and iPad over VNC.  Great for checking/restarting tests while on the road, at lunch, or just lying in bed.  If there's a BenchVue app with identical functionality that can share control with an instance running on the test PC back at the lab, that could be a reasonable substitute.  But I already have my LAN and firewall configured for VNC access, so at least for me, it wouldn't be the path of lowest loop inductance.

The test software framework that I'm developing now can actually act as a VNC server by itself.  I consider it that important.

[Messtechniker]

Question -> Is using a VNC on a PC to remote into the local PC using BenchVue a common use case or it is occasional ? Any reason for not just installing BenchVue on the remote PC and connecting directly to the instruments ( besides lag ).
Sid

Well, I use VNC all the time, because my electronics lab is in the basement and I don't want to run down there all the time just to see what's going on. VNC is a bit laggy of course , but as I don't exercise the programs, it this case does not matter much to me. Installing BV on the monitoring PCs (I have several) is not an option for me a) because BV is so bloated, b) because of licensing costs, c) for software maintenance reasons, d) because I want to keep the data in one place and e) because sometimes I want to view BV via a smart phone.

Incidentally just at this moment VNC again did not want to display the BV graph again. So for the moment I will have to give up on VNC displaying BV. By the way BV is the only program which does not like to work with VNC (or the other way round). All others except those using video overlays work fine albeit be bit slower.

What I would recommend you do with BV? I don't know.
Give up BV as it currently is completely and go back to the drawing board starting at square 1?
Invest in programming more and better Labview drivers and apps?
Go the open source route supporting/acquiring the Sigrok project (which currently is not mature enough yet), for example?

Yours Messtechniker

[kaz911]

Question -> Is using a VNC on a PC to remote into the local PC using BenchVue a common use case or it is occasional ? Any reason for not just installing BenchVue on the remote PC and connecting directly to the instruments ( besides lag ).
Sid

Hi Sid,

I think there are a few reasons for remoting (RDC/VNC) to the PC measuring. First my "Bench PC" is dedicated to live on my bench - it has some USB GPIB interfaces and some RS232 devices connected. They can be shared on the network but only with pain.

2nd - I do not want all the BV crap on my main PC. Some solves it by putting BV in a Virtual Machine and start it on demand - others like me solve it by keeping it isolated on the bench PC and then VNC/RDC into the pc for control. The ONLY things that gets on my Main PC are things I use on the road - like SignalVu-PC and my compilers/IDE's.

And if things do not show up correct on a Microsoft Remote Desktop connection - the app is not Windows compatible and is using crap hacks to display whatever is missing. 

[plesa]

Question -> Is using a VNC on a PC to remote into the local PC using BenchVue a common use case or it is occasional ? Any reason for not just installing BenchVue on the remote PC and connecting directly to the instruments ( besides lag ).
Sid

Well, I use VNC all the time, because my electronics lab is in the basement and I don't want to run down there all the time just to see what's going on. VNC is a bit laggy of course , but as I don't exercise the programs, it this case does not matter much to me. Installing BV on the monitoring PCs (I have several) is not an option for me a) because BV is so bloated, b) because of licensing costs, c) for software maintenance reasons, d) because I want to keep the data in one place and e) because sometimes I want to view BV via a smart phone.

Incidentally just at this moment VNC again did not want to display the BV graph again. So for the moment I will have to give up on VNC displaying BV. By the way BV is the only program which does not like to work with VNC (or the other way round). All others except those using video overlays work fine albeit be bit slower.

What I would recommend you do with BV? I don't know.
Give up BV as it currently is completely and go back to the drawing board starting at square 1?
Invest in programming more and better Labview drivers and apps?
Go the open source route supporting/acquiring the Sigrok project (which currently is not mature enough yet), for example?

Yours Messtechniker

I was user BV, but when I needs not only logging from Agilent/Keysight instruments I realized that the available set of functions is limited.  Windows machine needs to run continuously. So I decided to pick up Raspberry and this triggers the RasPi Lognut. You can access it remotely, easy modification of test sequence, low power consumption and etc.
https://www.eevblog.com/forum/metrology/raspberry-pi23-logging-platform-for-voltnuts/new/?topicseen#new
For displaying the data is used D3js and website which is also lightweight.

You can access it over VNC/ssh or directly the website with graph on your PC.
I also tried Labview, but the RPi3 with python and D3js ( soon C3) is the winner.

[Messtechniker]

Ready for the next question?
What on earth is BV trying to tell me
upon initially loading data from my KS 34465A?

Data Upload in Progress
((Progress bar remains grey))
Fetching Data..... -77706 of 100

Also see attachment.

Yours Messtechniker

[blackdog]

Hi,

I think Sid has a terrible headache after this week reading this eevblog BenchVue topic...

Kind regards,
Blackdog

[nctnico]

Hi,

I think Sid has a terrible headache after this week reading this eevblog BenchVue topic...

I think so too. The last pages don't instill much confidence in the actual usability of BenchVue. If it was free it may be OK (but just another typical crappy software package which comes with test equipment). I guess you just have to shell out money to buy the real deal.

[nfmax]

Every time a piece of software is used by somebody new, new bugs will appear. It seems to be a law of nature. The important thing is to have a clear channel of communication between the users and the developers (such as this forum), and the resources to fix the bugs and get the fixes into the hands of the user. Good developers welcome bug reports!

[Messtechniker]

Just for fun I cobbled together a small Profilab program
for logging the 34465As output. The enclosed graph shows the drift
of a 1 kHz 0 dB sine wave oscillator. The screen shots were taken via VNC
on the remote computer by the way. I have also included the Profilab "source code"
for anyone who has Profilab. Enjoy.
Sorry for the German text. My mistake. 
If there is any demand I will englishify the prog and make an exe of it. 

[Sid.BenchVueTeam]

We do have some limited support in our mobile app but not a full fledged VNC replacement - www.keysight.com/find/benchvuemobile

Question -> Is using a VNC on a PC to remote into the local PC using BenchVue a common use case or it is occasional ? Any reason for not just installing BenchVue on the remote PC and connecting directly to the instruments ( besides lag ).
Sid

If there's a BenchVue app with identical functionality that can share control with an instance running on the test PC back at the lab, that could be a reasonable substitute.

[Sid.BenchVueTeam]

Thanks. I just filed a defect for the team to recreate and debug this.

 By the way BV is the only program which does not like to work with VNC (or the other way round). All others except those using video overlays work fine albeit be bit slower.

Yours Messtechniker

[Sid.BenchVueTeam]

If you can file a defect report to send us the logs that will really help. ( Chat icon in the upper right hand corner, "Report an Issue" ). I forwarded this defect to R&D
Sid

Ready for the next question?
What on earth is BV trying to tell me
upon initially loading data from my KS 34465A?

Data Upload in Progress
((Progress bar remains grey))
Fetching Data..... -77706 of 100

Also see attachment.

Yours Messtechniker

[Sid.BenchVueTeam]

no comment   

Hi,

I think Sid has a terrible headache after this week reading this eevblog BenchVue topic...

Kind regards,
Blackdog

[Sid.BenchVueTeam]

Yes, very much so. Just want to point out that there are two ways to get in touch with us directly from the SW. The chat icon in the upper right corner provides two options
1. Send Feedback - this comes directly to me. You can include screenshots easily along with any feedback. Do reference either the EEVBlog or your email so I can get back to you.
2. Report an Issue - this compiles all the defect logs and emails it to us. Goes to our support manager who is very responsive to customer issues.

Thanks
Sid

The important thing is to have a clear channel of communication between the users and the developers (such as this forum), and the resources to fix the bugs and get the fixes into the hands of the user. Good developers welcome bug reports!

[LabSpokane]

Question -> Is using a VNC on a PC to remote into the local PC using BenchVue a common use case or it is occasional ? Any reason for not just installing BenchVue on the remote PC and connecting directly to the instruments ( besides lag ).
Sid

Sid,

I hate to tell you this, but BV is so resource intensive that it virtually requires a dedicated PC.  I use the BV app to view remotely, but I can fully understand the desire to use VNC to view on a dedicated PC. 

I realize that you're probably too far down the line to change development platforms, but .NET and the ginormous libraries you're now beholden to are a problem. 

[HighVoltage]

Sid,

I hate to tell you this, but BV is so resource intensive that it virtually requires a dedicated PC.   

That is what I do !
I have a Win 7 Lenovo Laptop that is designated only for BenchVue because otherwise the PC is so much limited.

And don't even try to have Keithley software running on the same laptop, it messes up the Keysight and Keithley libraries.
So, one PC just for BV seems to be the solution.
But not everyone can or will afford this.

[plesa]

Sid,

I hate to tell you this, but BV is so resource intensive that it virtually requires a dedicated PC.   

That is what I do !
I have a Win 7 Lenovo Laptop that is designated only for BenchVue because otherwise the PC is so much limited.

And don't even try to have Keithley software running on the same laptop, it messes up the Keysight and Keithley libraries.
So, one PC just for BV seems to be the solution.
But not everyone can or will afford this.

The dedicated PC is complication. For this purpose I like the Keithley TSB which allow you to make script running on instrument ( Lua ). But when it comes to real world usage for me was solution in RPi and Python with webserver and C3js.

The guys from BenchVue team are doing quite job, I did not see this kind of interactions from other instruments software developers 

[blackdog]

Hi plesa,

I like that KeySight is making this kind of control software.

But the path chosen by KeySight I think is not the right way.
The way of coding which KeySight used for BV, I'm getting pimples from...
And i find it unbelievable that there are so many software mistakes, these are not bugs but incompetent coding.
Why are the coders not playing with say a 3446xa DMM with a real technician next to hem to check the software before its pushd out...

And know think about how compact the software would be in the in a 3446xA DMM...
If you need a dedicated computer for BV, wat tells this about the road KeySight have chosen, in my opinion, it is not efficient coding...

Look for example how "PicoTech" does it.
Even if you buy a low cost product from them, you get the control software for free en de software is not colossal.
The software interface is simpel en efficient, no BV monky business, and yes it still can be better, and every update its better!

But like LabSpokane says, the are too far gone to change the way they are going now.

Kind regarts,
Blackdog