Keithley
Instruments
2400-854B01
Release Note for Version B01
IVI Instrument Driver for the Model 2400, 2410, 2420, 2425, 2430, 2440, and
6430 SourceMeters
7/23/2004
IMPORTANT:
To work properly with the driver, your instrument must have a compatible version
of firmware. Refer to section 2 (System
Requirements) below for specific details regarding the required firmware
version for your instrument. Visit
Keithley.com for upgrade instructions if your instrument’s firmware is not a
compatible version. The instrument’s
firmware version is shown on the display when the instrument is first powered
up, immediately to the right of the model number.
This
document provides additional information for the installation and use of the
2400-854B01 2400 driver for LabVIEW and LabWindows CVI, Visual Basic, and
C/C++.
Table of
Contents
----------------------------------------------
2.1 Supported Operating Systems and
System Software
3.1 Keithley I/O Layer Installation
3.2 Instrument Driver Installation
3.2.1 Installing the driver from the Web
4 Using the 2400 IVI Instrument
Driver
4.2 Create your own Virtual Instruments
4.4.3 Ethernet (Socket connection)
4.4.4 Example of using VISA resources:
4.6 Using the Example Programs
4.7 Using the driver with LabVIEW
----------------------------------------------
The components
described below are provided as part of the KE2400 IVI Instrument Driver for
the 2400 family of SourceMeters. Some
shortcuts for them are added to the Keithley Instruments folder on your Start
Menu.
Version
B01 of the KE2400 driver supports the Model 2400, 2410, 2420, 2425, 2430, 2440,
and 6430 SourceMeters.
The driver
uses the Keithley I/O layer (VISA) to communicate with your instrument. IVI
(Interchangeable Virtual Instruments) and VISA (Virtual Instrument Software
Architecture) provide a common foundation for application development across
multiple communication buses and multiple instrument vendors. This software driver supports many
Application Development Environments under Windows, such as Visual Basic,
C/C++, LabVIEW, LabWindows/CVI, and TestPoint. Numerous examples and an on-line
help utility are provided to help programmers build their custom applications.
Important
note: The Keithley Configuration Utility and Keithley I/O Layer software are no
longer bundled with the driver as a single installation package. The Keithley I/O layer may be downloaded
from the Keithley Web site along with the driver. The Keithley I/O software should be installed before the driver
itself is installed, if possible.
Pentium-class
PC.
24XX
firmware release C27 or later.
Keithley
I/O Layer software KIOL-850 version B02.3 or later.
NOTE:
Keithley strongly recommends that you power your computer and instrument from
an Uninterruptible Power Supply (UPS) when running a critical application.
Windows XP
Professional service pack 1 or later
Windows
2000 Service pack 3 or later
Windows NT
Service pack 6a or later
Windows 98
Second edition only
Note:
Windows 95 is not supported.
Chinese
Windows 98 (Second Edition), 2000, and XP Pro are supported.
Japanese
Windows 98 (Second Edition), 2000, and XP Pro are supported.
LabVIEW
versions 5.1 through 7.1 are supported.
Before
installing the KE2400 instrument driver, download and install the Keithley I/O
Layer, KIOL-850, following the instructions in the I/O layer readme file to
install and configure the software, and to connect your instrument to your
computer.
If you
have an earlier version of the driver software installed on your computer,
uninstall it by following the steps below before installing this version.
Using the
Add/Remove Programs Wizard in Control Panel, uninstall the following
components:
Keithley 2400 IVI Driver.
Keithley I/O Layer.
NI-VISA x.x.x Runtime (If present) (x.x.x will be the VISA
version)
Reboot
your computer.
Download
the driver software from the Keithley Web site, www.keithley.com. The software is a single compressed file and
should be downloaded to a temporary directory.
Run the
downloaded file from the temporary directory.
Follow the
instructions on the screen to install the software.
When the
installation is complete, reboot your computer.
To connect
to the instrument via the driver you need to first call KE2400_init or
KE2400_InitWithOptions. The first parameter for either function is a VISA
resource string, which indicates to the I/O layer which communication device
you want to use to connect to the instrument and in most cases the address of
the instrument. This can be specified
using a Virtual Instrument name, a Logical Name, or a VISA Resource string. We recommend that you do not use the VISA resource
string form, since it builds hardware and bus dependencies into your code. If you use the Virtual Instrument Name or
the Logical Name form, the Keithley Configuration Panel can be used to select a
different bus or address with no code changes required.
The
Keithley I/O Layer installer creates several virtual instruments that you can
use to automatically connect to an instrument.
If you are
using a National Instruments GPIB card, select KE2400_GPIB24 as your device. By
default, the logical name KE2400ExampleInstr is also assigned to this
device. This logical name is used by
the example programs but can also be used by user programs.
If you are
using a Keithley Instruments or CEC ISA or PCI GPIB card, select
KE2400_GPIB1_24 as your device.
If you are
using a Keithley Instruments or INES PCMCIA GPIB card, select KE2400_GPIB2_24
as your device.
If you are
using COM Port 1, select KE2400_COM1 as your device.
If you are
using COM Port 2, select KE2400_COM2 as your device.
An example
of using a Virtual Instrument Name to connect to an instrument connected to COM
Port 1 is:
KE2400_init("KE2400_COM1",
VI_TRUE, VI_TRUE, handle)
If you
want to create your own virtual instruments then use the Configuration Panel or
Wizard. Open the Configuration Panel by selecting Start> Programs>
Keithley Instruments> Keithley Configuration Panel, and wait for the Wizard
to start. Follow the Wizard
instructions to create a new configuration or modify an existing one.
You can
also define logical Names for your devices using the configuration panel. One logical name is created by default:
KE2400ExampleInstr. This default
logical name is used by the example programs supplied with the driver, and is
associated with the KE2400_GPIB24 device by default.
For GPIB
instruments, you would use a resource string of the following format:
"GPIBx::yy::INSTR".
x is the GPIB card number.
yy is the GPIB address of the instrument.
For RS232
instruments, the VISA resource string has the following format:
"ASRLx::INSTR" where x is the COM Port number.
For
Ethernet instruments, use the following VISA resource string format:
"TCPIPx::IP::Port::SOCKET".
x is the Ethernet card number.
IP is the IP address of the instrument.
Port is the port number of the instrument.
To connect
to a 2400 at GPIB address 24 via GPIB1:
KE2400_init("GPIB1::24::INSTR", VI_TRUE, VI_TRUE,
handle)
Using the
KE2400_InitWithOptions function there is a parameter, called OptionString,
where you can enable/disable certain features of an IVI driver.
If this
feature is enabled the driver will query the instrument after every function
call to see if there were any errors. This is useful while you are writing your
application but once it is finalized then you can disable this feature to gain
extra performance.
If enabled
the IVI engine will check to see if the parameters you are passing in are
within range. Disabling this feature in the final application will also gain
some performance increase.
The driver
has the option of caching all the settings it sends to the instrument so that
it doesn't send a setting to the instrument a second time if it hasn't changed.
By default this is enabled.
The KE2400
Driver includes a number of example programs written in Visual Basic, LabVIEW,
and C. The examples demonstrate how to
perform common functions using the driver. The example programs are hard coded
to use the logical name: KE2400ExampleInstr for the device identifier. By
default, this logical name is associated with the KE2400_GPIB24 device, which
is a 24XX at GPIB address 24 using a National Instruments GPIB interface card
for communications. If you are using a
different bus, address, or interface card, you must reassign the logical name
to the correct device using the Keithley Configuration Panel. For example, if you are using a CEC GPIB
card instead of a National Instrument GPIB card, you would use the Keithley
Configuration Panel to reassign the logical name from the KE2400_GPIB24 device
to the KE2400_GPIB1_24 device.
LabVIEW
versions 5.1 through 7.1 are supported.
If LabVIEW
is already installed on your computer when the driver is installed, the LabVIEW
VIs will be installed in the proper subdirectory of the LabVIEW directory so
that they are directly accessible from within LabVIEW.
If LabVIEW
is not installed on your computer when the driver is installed, the LabVIEW VIs
will placed in a subdirectory of the Keithley Instruments directory. Once LabVIEW has been installed, the VIs
must be copied to the proper subdirectory under LabVIEW before they can be
used. This directory is typically:
C:\Program
Files\National Instruments\LabView X\instr.lib\KE2400
Depending
on the particular driver, there may be separate versions of the VIs for LabVIEW
5.x and 6.x, in which case they will be installed into separate
directories. Copy the appropriate
version of the VIs into the National Instrument directory tree. The 6.x VIs are
compatible with versions 7 and 7.1.
None.
The VISA
software supplied with the Instrument Driver is Copyright (c) 2001-2004
National Instruments Corporation. All
Rights Reserved.
The KE2400
Series instrument driver is Copyright (c) 2003-2004 Keithley Instruments. All Rights Reserved.
End of
Release notes.