Hello, is there a LabView Driver available, or a way to control through LabView, the Eval board for the AD5370 40 channel DAC? If not with LabView, is there another way (other than the Analog Devices simple control panel) to programmatically change the values to all the 40 channels? Thanks.
FYI, I am running LabView 8.6 on a Windows XP machine...
I did have a sample LabView program but this used an older driver. The current evaluation board software uses drivers that are compatible with Win7. The problem with this is that it's incredibly difficult to remove these drivers completely due to the way Windows stores files.
The evaluation board software is written in Visual Basic 6. I can send you the original labview code and a sample of the visual basic code which will show you the difference between the XP function calls and the Win7 ones. This might let you modify the labview code.
I can't offer any support on the software as I wasn't involved in the changeover.
Thanks! Please send the LabView code and the visual basic code.
I am still a bit confused as to how to make this work. I can use a Windows 7 PC if that will make the process easier, and particularly if it is necessary to make this work. I need this eval board to work under programmatic control so I can use it in a large R&D program I am working on, to validate the approach, but I am not an expert on the electronics or programming side (I am a photonics person).
Any direction on the best way to accomplish LabView control of the board would be really appreciated, e.g. Windows 7, newer version of LabView etc...
Thanks.
Hi Femto,
If you can use an XP that hasn't had the Win 7 version of the software installed then you can get up and running pretty quickly.
Assuming you can, here's how...
run the AD537x xp install file. This will copy drivers, dlls etc to the relevant places. The labview.zip file has a labview program that can use these files directly.
If you only have one PC with XP and it has the win 7 version then you can try uninstall the software and follow the steps above. I don't think this will work because of the way the drivers create backups to reinstall if they are deleted. This is a microsoft issue rather than an Analog Devices one.
I have attached the visual basic source code for the XP and Win7 versions of software so you can see the difference in the function calls to the drivers. This might help you to modify the labview code.
If this doesn't work there are plenty of USB to SPI adaptors available on the web and some provide labview drivers too.
Hope this helps.
Thank you for the suggestions and code, after a lot of frustration and wasted time I finally got LabView to work with the Eval card, just not quite how you suggested. For others who might try to do the same thing in the future, here is a summary of what I did and some comments/suggestions:
1) I was confused by your initial comment about the "Win 7" version of the software - I assume you mean the more recent versions of the software that comes with the Eval board, as none of them seem to identify themselves as XP of Win 7 software... So I take it that the 'old' software you provided for the Eval board "AD537x xp install" was the windows XP software, and the versions I received last year and this year with two different Eval boards were the "Win 7" version.
2) (over many attempts) I uninstalled the "Win 7" software for the Eval Card and went through and deleted any other files with AD537 in the name. As you mentioned, when I attached the Eval board at that point the computer still recognized the board and loaded a driver - so I went into system, found the driver for the USB Eval board (from Analog Devices, but unfortunately with no version number included), and uninstalled that driver.
3) With everything uninstalled, I loaded your older software. When I plugged in the Eval board it was not recognized - so I had uninstalled everything OK, however the software you provided did not load a driver into the system. I did not have a CD or a direct copy of the driver, so I let the system try and load a driver itself - which it did, just not sure what driver.
4) I ran your Eval Board software, chose 5370 device, and tried to change values on the card. Nothing changed on the card. Frustratingly, the Eval board software does not provide any error messages or let you know in any way that it is not communicating with the board. I retried this approach multiple times...
5) Finally, I removed your old Eval board software, and reloaded the "Win 7" software that came with the Eval board, as I know that it will talk to the board and change voltage outputs etc. I then reloaded the LabView code you provided, and when I ran the VI it actually worked! So thank you for providing the LabView code! However, on my XP system and running LabView 8.6, your old Eval software turned out to be a red herring that wasted a lot of time...
I have been disappointed with the support Analog Devices provides with this Eval board, it has wasted a large amount of time and effort (and $'s) on our end trying to test the board for our application. It would be helpful if AD better controls the versions of its driver and software, indicating what system (XP, Win 7) it is compatible with, and maybe having a short description of different versions on the support section of the website. It would also be helpful for AD to provide a current version of the driver and LabView code that are known to work together - while KenK was trying to be helpful, providing old and incompatible software and leaving me to sort out the problems was not optimum... Ultimately, it seems to work, so now I am much happier!
