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Products => Test Equipment => Topic started by: zejulios on September 26, 2017, 10:03:56 am

Title: PC software for controlling test equipment's
Post by: zejulios on September 26, 2017, 10:03:56 am

Hello,

I have a Rigol DP832A PSU, Agilent 34401A Multimeter, Agilent 34970A DAQ, BK Precision 8601 ELoad, and would like to control all of them thru PC.
I just want a simple graphical interface to control the equipments and some graphs, nothing very complicated.
I do not like LabView, nor want to write program to do that...

Does anyone knows a software that can do this?
I have tried the Rigol Ultra Power, and was unable to make it work... Agilent BenchVue it's too heavy and the free version has several limitations, Pro version it's too expensive for only 2 equipment's...
The only thing that works relatively well it's the BK Precision software and BK Battery Test...

Any tips will be appreciated.

Regards,

ZJ

Title: Re: PC software for controlling test equipment's
Post by: Jeroen3 on September 26, 2017, 11:23:32 am

As far as I have seen LabView is the only "easy" way.

Quote from: zejulios on September 26, 2017, 10:03:56 am

I do not like LabView, nor want to write program to do that...

Nobody does.

Title: Re: PC software for controlling test equipment's
Post by: Bicurico on September 26, 2017, 11:38:59 am

Though most test equipment implements SCPI, each has its own indiviual command set.

Kind of difficult to program a universal software, especially considering that all devices have different interfaces (GPIO, USB, RJ45, RS232, ...).

That s why NI software is practically the only option, while being a HUGE download. And still, you won't be able to fully control unsupported devices.

The other option is to program your own software using SCPI protocol and the individual command set.

Regards,
Vitor

Title: Re: PC software for controlling test equipment's
Post by: zejulios on September 26, 2017, 11:44:25 am

HI,

Thanks for your replay's.
I'm almost loosing my hope on this...

It could be different software's, I do not mind to have a software for Rigol, other for Agilent, other for BK, if that works...
As I told both Rigol and Agilent software's do not work properly...

Writing my own can be an option, but I was hoping that someone already did that and I do not want to invent the wheel again...

Regards,

ZJ

Title: Re: PC software for controlling test equipment's
Post by: ddavidebor on September 26, 2017, 12:56:12 pm

https://sigrok.org/ interfaces with many instruments, you can take a look at that.

Title: Re: PC software for controlling test equipment's
Post by: alm on September 26, 2017, 06:07:48 pm

Does NI still have SignalExpress? That used to be their tool for basic graphing and sweeping without the complexity and do flexibility of LabVIEW.