DAQ To Labview

I've noticed a lot of hits on my blog have been from a Google search trying to couple a DAQ with Labview. I have briefly alluded to how I did this a couple of weeks ago, so I thought I'd go over it again in a bit more depth. This vi should run for any DAQ that uses a serial port or runs through a virtual serial port, I'm not sure how many of the DAQ's out there that do it this way though. Of course the easy way to do this would be to buy a National Instruments DAQ, but this would require you to sell a kidney as they aren't cheap. There are several DAQ manufacturers who will provide Labview vi's for their equipment and it's always worth investigating prior to buying one.

I have actually downloaded a few beginners guides to programming in Python, I am quite proficient at Matlab scripts, so it wouldn't take long to learn the syntax. Depending on how I progress with Labview and whether it can actually do the things I want without dragging its heels, I may end up scrapping it all together and write a dashboard program from scratch in Python. Another student at uni is in the progress of building a flight simulator with several screens and a true to life aircraft cockpit, and has built several virtual aircraft gauges using C++, so that's another option. My first impressions of Labview were favourable, but the more I try to use it, the more 'clumsy' it seems. But we'll see, and I will persevre with it for now.

Anyway my vi for the µChameleon DAQ looks like this, it is very simple when compared to other DAQ vi's I have seen. I have no idea if that is a good thing or not. Since this particular DAQ has firmware which creates a virtual serial port, it is 'easy' work to get it to work with Labview. I'm sure there are much easier ways to do this, but I have had less than twenty hours time with Labview, so I will gradually improve things as I go. I have labelled the vi with as many comments as I can think of to help, rather than try to explain every last step because pictures really do say a thousand words! The vi is based on VISA, (virtual instrument software architecture), and will find any device connected to the serial port).

Within the vi you may notice a small block I have labelled as a sub vi. This was a small vi I 'borrowed' from somebody else's program, I forget who's because I have downloaded so many and picked each one apart to see how it worked, but whoever you were, thank you!! But I digress, here is what is contained within the sub vi. I will get around to putting up a download link for my vi when its done.