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DAQFactory - LabJack Application Guide

1. Area Graphs Negative from X Axis IV All of this is shown complete in the sample file Sample file LJGuideSamples TriggeredStream ctl 9 2 5 Error handling for streaming Streaming from a LabJack is what is called an asynchronous action This means that the LabJack does its own thing and every so often it tells DAQFactory that there is new data or there is an error For this reason you cannot simply look at the error code returned by L ioSTART STREAM to catch all stream errors This command may return a stream configuration type error so you ll want to check for it using the same methods as the low speed acquisition but will not handle errors in the actual stream For this you have two choices 1 You can create a simple sequence to retrieve the last stream error continuously and do something if it returns an error The function GetLastStreamError will return the code for the last stream error This is reset when you start the stream This however is not the best way to do this and will waste processor power 2 You can use the DAQFactory OnAlert event which only gets called when an actual error occurs Using the event as an error handler is described in the previous section on error handling and catching stream errors would be done the same way One common error you might want to catch is if your LabJack accidentally gets unplugged while streaming If you wanted to automatically restart streaming when it is reconnected yo
2. Contents 5 1035 4 Firmware Count r IN lt 7 iyya aa enan ae 2A nyay we aw kr d VER a K ku danl ku dEi da awae ke Ua ka aw kk k weka kaka n a 1a au n KEK NA a ZE WE HARIKA Kale daa kawa 74 10 5 5 Firmware counter in w Debounce 74 10 5 6 Frequency out 75 10 5 7 Quadrature 75 10 5 8 Timer stop 76 10 5 9 System tim KI ooo kisoi ra en anan iii S k Re ER RO a VE REK H DR EN HZ K S E wu bn an E SA J E VEK ER R 77 11 Advanced 79 11 1 Opening a LabJack MaNUAllY ri 79 11 2 Raw In Out and other functions that require array pointerS rrriiiiiiii 79 11 3 SPlI om m iC atil ONS onside aana aa aaaea Aa a aea eiaa interni tia 80 11 4 Utilizing multicore PrOCESSOMS 0 ecceceeeeeeeeeeeeee ee eeeeee see kak kak AK AA WEKA WA WERA WAA WERA WA WARA KA WAE AA AA WARA WAW WEAR WA WE 81 11 5 Unisupported functions vip lai ia eko ae kew kar k an kik kk akan kasa ken kara ak niweka awan k kn kann dU ARK ako Ha aaa 81 2011 AzeoTech Inc 1 Introduction 1 Introduction 7 1 Introduction 1 1 Welcome Congratulations on the purchase of your new LabJack Included on your installation CD is a trial of DAQFactory Pro that will convert to a fully licensed copy of DAQFactory Express after 25 days which will help you make the most of your new device With DAQFactory Express you can take da
3. use system clock so works on U3 and UE9 AddRequest ID LIJ ioPUT CONFIG IJ chTIMER CLOCK BASE LJ tcsSYS 0 0 Set the divisor to 24 AddRequest ID LJ ioPUT CONFIG LJ chTIMER CLOCK DIVISOR 48 0 0 Enable 1 timer It will use FIOA AddRequest ID LJ ioPUT CONFIG LJ chNUMBER TIMERS ENABLED 1 0 0 Configure Timer0 as Frequency out AddRequest ID LJ ioPUT TIMER MODE 0 LJ tmFREQOUT 0 0 Set the second divisor to 10 AddRequest ID LJ ioPUT TIMER VALUE 0 10 0 0 Execute the requests GoOne 0 Sample file LJGuideSamples TimerFreqOut ctl 10 5 7 Quadrature The quadrature Timer mode is designed explicitly for use with quadrature encoders A quadrature encoder is a device that allows you to determine the absolute position of a rotating shaft It does this by generating two pulses with each part of a rotation how small of a rotation a part is depends on the encoder One pulse will come before the other if the shaft is rotating in one direction and the pulse order is flipped if the shaft is rotating in the other direction The LabJack quadrature timer reads both these pulses and increments or decrements the timer reading depending on which pulse occurs first Because it takes two pulse signals coming in on two wires the quadrature mode requires two timers even though there is only one reading The two timers have to be adjacent pairs with the even timer as quadrature channel A and the odd t
4. 66 DAQFactory LabJack Application Guide Formula TypeK Value Offset CJC 0 273 15 There are different formulas for each thermocouple type such as TypeJ 7 Go back to the channel table and for the AINO channel you created in step 4 select the Thermocouple conversion you just created and click Apply That is it You can now display or plot the input channel You can adjust the offset variable to adjust for any bias in the LabJack by changing it in the sequence we created in step 2 and rerunning it or by creating a screen control to adjust its value shown in the sample Sample file LJGuideSamples UE9_Thermocouple ctl The sample doesn t use a conversion but instead puts the formula in the components themselves Conversions are typically easier since you typically only want to see the temperature however for calibration you often want the raw voltage and so can t use a conversion 9 3 2 Amplified Thermocouple Readings When using an amplifier the steps are pretty much identical to the unamplified version except we need to adjust the input based on the amplification 1 Right click on SEQUENCES in the Workspace and select Add Sequence Give it the name StartUp and click OK 2 In the sequence editor check the box labeled Auto Start then put the following in the script global offset 0 global gain 51 If using a UE9 you can add these lines as well using device labjack include c progra
5. Create link Done Create New Data Source Data Source Name Tank Create A data source is a collection of tags I O points or data values It typically corresponds with a single device or software instance If you are sending data to DAQConnect from multiple devices or PC s you d typically create a separate data source for each Data source names must start with a letter and contain only letters numbers or the underscore This will create a new data source named Tank and link it to your DAQFactory document You can create other data sources in your account and switch among them by clicking on Real time Web gt Connect again 5 The window will close Select Real time Web gt Settings Then check Display Detailed Status in Command Alert and click OK These settings are typically not required to use DAQConnect You should be able to simply select Connect from the main menu MW Display Detailed Status in Command Alert The settings below should remain at their defaults www dagconnect com unless you have a dedicated server account or are using a proxy server If you are using a proxy change Host to the name or IP of the proxy server Host www dagconnect com Host Name www daqconnect com Cancel This will cause DAQConnect status messages to appear in the command alert window This setting is designed for debugging only and is not saved with the document If all is well you should see DAQConn
6. 3 Select the Event tab Here we can enter script that executes every time a new reading occurs on the Temperature channel Since this script can delay the readings we need to make sure its short and fast 4 Enter the following script if Temperature 0O 15 amp amp Temperature 1 gt 15 HeaterPower 1 endif if Temperature 0 gt 22 amp amp Temperature 1 lt 22 HeaterPower 0 endif 5 Click Apply The thermostat will start working immediately though it won t actually change the state of the heater until the temperature passes through one of the thresholds This example shows a couple things that are a least important to thermostat applications e Hysteresis we could just have the heater go on if the temperature is below 15 and off it is above but this usually does not work well Your analog inputs will likely have at least a little noise and so when the temperature is right around 15 the readings will tend to jump above and below the 15 threshold causing the heater to rapidly turn on and off To avoid this we use something called hysteresis The heater comes on at 15 degrees but doesn t shut off until 22 Unless your noise is 7 degrees the heater will respond much better e Thresholding another way to write this script would be if Temperature 0 lt 15 HeaterPower 1 endif if Temperature 0 gt 22 HeaterPower 0 endif The difference is that in this second shorter script the heate
7. 4 Click Apply At this point provided RawCounts is actually getting increasing counts the Counts channel will have the interval counts You can click on the Table tab to see this after clicking on Counts in the Workspace The problem with the above method is that it doesn t account for counter roll over On a 32 bit counter this happens at just over 4 billion counts so before worrying about this you might want to figure out how long it would take to accumulate that many counts and see if its worth worrying about Remember that if you reset the counter at startup you only have to worry about the amount of time DAQFactory is continuously running If rollover does occur all you will see is a single negative interval counts measurement You can post calc the correct measurement by simply adding 4294967296 to this negative number That is 2 raised to the 32 power But if you don t want negative counts on rollover you just have to change the Event from step 3 slightly if RawCounts 0 gt RawCounts 1 Counts AddValue RawCounts 0 RawCounts 1 else Counts AddValue RawCounts 0 RawCounts 1 2432 endif Of course if you have a 16 bit counter you ll need to change the 32 to 16 so it adds 65536 instead Hertz measurements Finally if instead of actual counts in an interval you want a hertz measurement counts per second we just change the AddValue lines to divide by the difference in time if RawCounts 0 gt RawCoun
8. Entering formulas directly into the Expression area of a component is handy because you can create another component to display the same input reading in different units If however you always want your reading in particular units you can instead use Conversions This has the added benefit of allowing you to log your data in these units Using our pressure example and a 0 5V 0 500psi sensor here is how you would create a conversion to put the readings into PSI 1 Click on CONVERSIONS in the Workspace This will display the conversion table 2 Click Add to add a new row 3 Give the conversion a name Say VoltsToPSI 4 In the Expression column put Value 100 2011 AzeoTech Inc 22 DAQFactory LabJack Application Guide Conversions Add Delete Apply Discard Conversion Name y Formula VoltsT aPSI Value 100 You ll notice that we used the word value instead of the channel name in the conversion s expression This allows a single conversion to be used on multiple channels The actual channel reading is substituted wherever Value appears in the formula 5 Click Apply to save the new conversion 6 Click on CHANNELS in the Workspace to bring up your list of channels 7 In the row with you Pressure channel go over to the column labeled Conversion and select VoltsToPSI Channel Table View Add Duplicate Delete Export Import Apply Discard Main New Group Chan
9. correspond U3 The U3 uses flex pins meaning a pin can be either an analog input digital input or digital output They can also be counters or timers depending on configuration For analog input and digital I O the pin mapping is I O Pin FIOO AINO FIO1 AIN1 FIO2 AIN2 FIO3 AIN3 FIO4 AIN4 FIO5 AIN5 FIO6 AIN6 FIO7 AIN7 Cash DR GI r I GN II CO GIN DA I ce TT KI CSS Note that the CIO pins are digital only You should only use a pin for one of the three uses so be careful not to use the same channel number for separate analog input digital input or digital output channels If you enable timers or counters they will use up the appropriate number of pins starting with FIOO This does not change the rest of the channel numbers So if you have two timers enabled they will be on FIOO and FIO1 FIO2 remains channel 2 to DAQFactory Of course if you use the pin offset option for timers and counters the timers 2011 AzeoTech Inc 3 Basic I O read write analog digital 17 might be on different pins but even the mapping of DAQFactory channel numbers to pins remains the same UES The UE9 has separate pins for analog and digital I O The analog input pins correspond directly to channel numbers so AINO is channel 0 AIN1 is channeli etc For digital I O the mapping is Channel I O pin 0 7 FIOO FIO7 8 15 EIOO EIO7 16 19 CIOO CIO3 20 22 MIOO MIO2 If yo
10. val1 GetResult 0 LJ ioGET AIN 2 val2 GetResult 0 LJ ioGET AIN 3 val3 OK you may think that eGet looks much easier since its only three lines of code vs seven and it is easier on a basic level but with ease you lose flexibility and efficiency Using the second method is more efficient internally The second method also allows you to do error handling easier using the GetNextError function With error handling the eGet code ends up looking like this err eGet 0 IJ ioGET AIN 1 vall 0 if err error endif err eGet 0 LJ ioGET AIN 2 val2 0 if err error endif err eGet 0 LJ ioGET AIN 3 val3 0 if err error endif But the Add Go Get looks like this AddRequest 0 LJ ioGET AIN 1 0 0 0 AddRequest 0 LJ_ioGET_AIN 2 0 0 0 2011 AzeoTech Inc 9 Analog and Digital I O 59 AddRequest 0 LJ_ioGET_AIN 3 0 0 0 GoOne 0 GetResult 0 LJ ioGET AIN 1 vall GetResult 0 LJ ioGET AIN 2 val2 GetResult 0 LJ ioGET AIN 3 val3 while GetNextError 1 io ch err error endwhile As you can see the second method is much cleaner and easier to read The eGet version would get worse and worse as you added more function calls Using the second method also allows you to create a single error handler for the entire block or as shown in the section on error handling you can create a single function to do all your error handling for a
11. Channels Click OK to close the properties window 13 Right click somewhere on the empty part of the page and select Buttons Button Right click on the new button and select Properties 14 For Caption put Start then go to the Action tab and select Start Stop Sequence then select your StartStream sequence 15 Repeat steps 13 and 14 but put Stop for the caption and StopStream for the sequence That is it You should be able to click on the Start button and have streaming on channels 2 and 3 start up and be graphed It is possible that the values will be off the scale of the graph so you may want to click on the graph then right click on the graph and select AutoScale AutoScale Y One important point if you start tweaking this sample the Channels that you created must have the same D and channel number as the one you specified in the LJ_ioADD_STREAM_CHANNEL request The I O Type must be A to D as well even if you are streaming digital inputs timers or counters If not then DAQFactory won t know where to put the data that is streaming in Note make sure you configure your inputs before starting the stream For the U3 this means you have to set the pins to analog input as shown in the example file Note you should not change the L chSTREAM WAIT MODE as all waiting is handled internally If you change this you will most likely cause streaming to stop functioning Sample file LJGuideSamples BasicStream ctl 9 2 3 S
12. LJ tmDUTYCYCLE 0 0 3 Set the clock frequency and divisor use system clock so works on U3 and UE9 AddRequest ID LJ ioPUT CONFIG LJ chTIMER CLOCK BASE IJ tcsSYS 0 0 AddRequest ID LJ ioPUT CONFIG LJ chTIMER CLOCK DIVISOR 48 0 0 4 GoOne to actually execute the commands GoOne ID 5 Create a channel to read the Timer I O Type is Timer Channel is the timer in this case 0 The tricky part is actually parsing the data since it is actually two different values packed into one number The best way to do this is similar to the way we dealt with resetting counters by creating extra psuedo channels to store the parsed data 6 Create two more channels one called TimeHigh one called TimeLow Device Type is Test D 0 I O Type A to D Chan 0 and most importantly Timing 0 7 Click Apply to save your new channels then click on the next to CHANNELS in the Workspace then click on your Timer channel We ll assume you called that channel RawDuty 2011 AzeoTech Inc 74 DAQFactory LabJack Application Guide 8 Click on the Event tab when the Channel view appears Enter the follow script to parse the timer reading and click Apply TimeHigh AddValue RawDuty 0 0x10000 LSW TimeLow AddValue floor RawDuty 0 0x10000 MSW This will split the single 32 bit reading into two separate readings and place them in their own channels Sample file LJGuideSample
13. LJ_chSPI_CS_PIN_NUM 1 0 0 Execute the requests on a single LabJack The driver will use a single low level TimerCounter command to hand GoOne ID now that its setup do the communication Note that you can do this part in a separate sequence and run mul without the reconfiguring the SPI with the above code initialize the variables private numSPIBytesToTransfer 4 private dataArray dataArray 0 170 dataArray 1 138 dataArray 2 85 dataArray 3 21 Transfer the data The write and read is done at the same time eGet ID LJ ioSPI COMMUNICATION 0 numSPIBytesToTransfer dataArray print the read to the command alert window Of course you ll probably do something a bit more exciting wit dataArray Each time you run the script the 4 bytes of dataArray will be written and then 4 bytes will be read back and printed to the command alert window As mentioned in the script comments you can do the actual communication multiple times without re running reconfiguration script at the top of this sample 2011 AzeoTech Inc 11 Advanced 81 11 4 Utilizing multicore processors In many places in this guide we ve split apart things that occur at less than 100hz and those that are faster This is because Windows needs to have some CPU time to redraw the screen move the mouse and perform other tasks and thus can t really do things at an interval faster than 100hz However if you have a
14. Right click on SEQUENCES in the Workspace and select Add Sequence Call the new sequence onAlert 2 In the sequence editor that appears enter the following script if find strAlert D0050 0 1 page page_0 backcolor rgb 255 0 0 endif 3 Click on Apply and Compile to save your changes Now to acknowledge the error and make the screen white again we need a button 4 Click on Page_0 in the Workspace under PAGES 5 Right click on the page somewhere and select Buttons amp Switches and then Button 6 Right click on the new button and select Properties Type Acknowledge for the Caption 7 Click on the Action tab then select Quick Sequence for the action 8 In the sequence editor under Quick Sequence enter page page 1 backcolor rgb 255 255 255 9 Click OK to save your changes Now if you have a few channels reading from the LabJack and an error occurs Page_0 will turn red until the error stops and you click on the Acknowledge button you created The easiest way to see this is to simply unplug the LabJack then plug it back in Sample file LJGuideSamples OnAlert ctl How it works If you create a sequence called OnAlert it will be called whenever a new alert is generated by DAQFactory and passes in strAlert as a private variable which is the actual error message Alerts almost always start with a letter and 4 digit code For device alerts the letter is always D and the 4 digit code is unique to the particular
15. Set to stop logging There are other ways to start and stop logging sets including the Action page of some components such as the variable value component that we used earlier 9 Now start Excel or Notepad and open the file c daqfactory mylogfile csv You will see two columns time and data By default the time is given in Excel Access format which is decimal days since 1900 You can also have DAQFactory log in its standard format of seconds since 1970 If you are using Excel and logging the time in Excel format you can format the first column as date time and the numbers displayed will be properly displayed as date and time Hint if you cannot find the mylogfile csv file check to make sure that you selected Pressure to log and not Output Since Output is an output channel it only gets new values to log when you actually set it to something Sample file LJGuideSamples LogASCII ctl 5 2 Batch logging The method we just used can also be used for batch logging Batch logging is used when you are doing multiple groups of measurements and you wish to log each group into a separate file We already know how to create a logging set so to do batch logging requires two more things a a way to start and stop the batch b a way to change the file name or automatically assign the filename Starting and stopping the batch log Really this is just starting and stopping a logging set The easiest way is to simply use a button 1 On a p
16. TIMER MODE 0 LJ tmPWM8 0 0 Set the PWM duty cycle to 505 AddRequest ID LJ ioPUT TIMER VALUE 0 32768 0 0 Execute the requests GoOne ID We ve explained most of these commands already The only one new is the L ioPUT TIMER VALUE This sets the PWM duty cycle Even though we are using an 8 bit PWM this takes a 16 bit number 32768 is half way into a 16 bit unsigned integer so this results in a 50 duty cycle PWM The general form of this command is LabJack ID LJ ioPUT TIMER VALUE Timer Value 0 0 The two modes are LJ_tmPWM8 LJ tmPWM16 Sample file LIGuideSamples TimerPWM cti 10 5 2 Period in There are four Timer modes that allow you to measure the number of clock cycles between consecutive rising or falling edges Two 16 bit and two 32 bit Using these modes is just a matter of performing all the basic steps we ve described 1 Enable a Timer AddRequest ID LJ ioPUT CONFIG LJ chNUMBER TIMERS ENABLED 1 0 0 2 Set the mode AddRequest ID LJ ioPUT TIMER MODE 0 LJ tmRISINGEDGE32 0 0 The four modes are 2011 AzeoTech Inc 10 Counters and Timers 73 LJ_tmRISINGEDGES32 LJ_tmFALLINGEDGES32 LJ_tmRISINGEDGES16 LJ_tmFALLINGEDGES16 Note the plural form of Edge 3 Set the clock frequency and divisor use system clock so works on U3 and UE9 AddRequest ID LJ ioPUT CONFIG LJ chTIMER CLOCK BASE LJ tcsSYS 0 0 AddRequest ID LJ ioPUT CONFIG LJ chT
17. a eaaa etosa aaae dene rarah naiai 41 6 2 4 Conditional statements 42 6 2 5 LOOpS and Delay ina 43 7 Some Common Tasks 45 7 1 Doing things based on an iNPUt cccceseeeceeeeeee sence nee aaa eta aa seen seen seeee sees aa kk AWA KA WERA KA WAREK AA HAAA WA WAA AR AA WERA 45 7 2 Sending email out Of DAGFactory rin 45 1 3 Uploading data Using FIR e iii itinerario 47 7 4 Performing a ramped OUtPUt eeeeceeeeeneeceeeenee eee ennneeeeensneeeseenseeeseeenseeeeeensaeaeeeenseeeseeenseeeeeenseceeeeenas 47 8 Calling the LabJackUD 50 8 1 Using and include for LabdJack iii 50 8 2 Doing configuration STEPS cceceeeceeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeseeeseeesnueeseenseeeseeeesueeseensneaeseenseaeseeenseeeeeenseeeeeeenas 51 8 3 Error handling with OAE E sil 255551 Kalar kaka kek ea kura a Kek kaka eu K weka B k nz e un ARE WE Soz ana G REHA YE RU H RE K R 52 8 4 Handling Disconnect RECONNECCL ccceecceceeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeneeeseenseee sence seeeseensneeeeeenseeeeeeeaseeeseenseceeeeeeas 53 8 9 Error handling in SCH pt cece ccs kenn kt ees 54 9 Analog and Digital I O 57 9 1 Low speed acquisition lt 10ONZ cccceeseeceeeeeeeeeeeeeneeeeeeseeeeseenseeeseeeeseeseeesneaeeeenseeesesenseeeeeenseeneeeenss 57 9 151 Introductioni i re k k ae oo lil dE SEENEN 57 9 1 2 The easy way with channels rien 57 9 1 3 Basic s
18. a resolution of 16 bit so has 65536 steps instead of the 4096 of the U3 This helps some The UE9 also has some built in gain Typically you get about 76 microvolts minimum step noise free and 15 microvolts RMS This means you get about 1 or 2 degrees C of resolution This isn t bad and might work For the exact specs please review Appendix B of the UE9 Users Guide If you need better than this then you will need to get an LITIA or EI1040 amplifier from LabJack to amplify the thermocouple signal If you aren t in a rush for your measurements and the temperature is changing slowly you can also use DAQFactory to oversample by taking multiple measurements and averaging them This is done by checking the Avg column of your input channel in the channel table and entering the number of oversample points in the Avg column UE9 Pro the UE9 Pro gets you an additional 2 bits of resolution over the UE9 27 microvolts noise free minimum step 5 microvolts RMS which is enough to read a thermocouple directly with a reasonable amount of precision You can use an amplifier as well if you want higher speed readings Now that we have that covered lets go over using both methods unamplified and amplified 9 3 1 Unamplified Thermocouple Readings This applies only to the UE9 and UE9 Pro because the U3 doesn t have the precision to read the low voltages output by athermocouple Please see the last section 7 5 for a full explanation 1 Right click on SEQUENCES
19. also use channels which will perform the same command for you If you create a new channel like you did for analog inputs but select either the Timer or Counter I O Type DAQFactory will query the timer or counter value at the interval you specified You still need to initialize and configure your timer or counter in script but once configured you can use these two I O types to perform the reads 10 3 Basic Counter and Timer setup To use the LabJack timers or counters you need to do some very basic setup Note to enable this guide and the corresponding samples to work with all LabJacks we use the System Clock tcSYS and a PIN_OFFSET of 4 Depending on your hardware you should feel free to use other clocks and other pin offsets First by default once you enable a timer or counter it will replace FIOO If you d prefer to keep FIOO for analog or digital I O you can use the LJ_chTIMER_COUNTER_PIN_OFFSET to select a different pin AddRequest ID LJ_ioPUT_CONFIG LJ_chTIMER_COUNTER_PIN_OFFSET 1 0 0 The above after a GoOne ID will set put the first enabled timer or counter on FIO1 instead of FIOO The general form of the command is LabJack ID LJ_ioPUT_CONFIG LJ_chTIMER_COUNTER_PIN_OFFSET FIO pin for first timer counter 0 0 Please note that as of hardware revision 1 3 of the U3 timers and counters will start at pin offset 4 Therefore a pin offset of 0 to 4 will all result in FIO4 being the first timer A pin offset
20. and the DAQFactory User s Guide If you have lost you CD you can always download DAQFactory from the AzeoTech website at www azeotech com Just download the trial Likewise the LabJack drivers should be available from the LabJack website at www labjack com Note If you get a alert message in DAQFactory saying that it is unable to load the LabJackN dll file then you probably forgot to install the LabJack drivers from LabJack Reinstall from your CD or go to www labjack com for the latest drivers If you upgrade DAQFactory by going to www azeotech com or DAQFactory Express by going to www dagexpress com you will most likely also need to ensure that you are using the latest LabJack drivers You should therefore go to www labjack com and download and install those drivers as well 2 2 Setup device Once installed and if necessary rebooted you ll want to quickly make sure your new device can be found and set its ID If you are going to connect over Ethernet we strongly suggest you perform this step over USB first 1 Plug in your new device into a USB port For maximum capabilities we recommend plugging into a USB port directly on the computer or to a powered USB hub If you plug into an unpowered USB hub you may run into sourcing limitations This can also occur if you have multiple devices plugged into the hub even if it is powered 2 Go to Start Programs LabJack LJControlPanel The complete documentation for this progra
21. device In the case of the U3 UE9 driver it is always 0050 The rest of the message can vary but for the LabJack you will get an error code afterwards which can be used to further parse for a particular code The format of LabJack errors is D0050 yy xxxx Message where xxxx is a 4 digit error code and y is the device ID number that caused the error or 99 if its a generic non device specific error The exception to this are errors that occur from Channel Timing These errors have the timing information in front So in our OnAlert sequence we look for the string DOO50 and if it is found then we know its a LabJack error Find returns 1 if not found and a positive number otherwise Then we simply set the background color of Page_0 to red using the RGB function The RGB function takes three parameters the amount of red the amount of green and amount of blue each from 0 255 and returns the full color value When using Channels to read values from your LabJack DAQFactory will continually retry the read at the Timing interval you specified in the channel even if an error occurs Because of this you can end up with the same error 2011 AzeoTech Inc 8 Calling the LabJackUD 53 over and over again This is why DAQFactory displays errors in the alert window and doesn t popup a separate window as many applications would When you are doing error handling with OnAlert you have to keep this in mind
22. following script standard initialization using device labjack include c program files LabJack Drivers labjackud h setup stream set scan rate AddRequest 0 LJ ioPUT CONFIG LJ chSTREAM SCAN FREQUENCY 1000 0 0 setup channels to stream AddRequest 0 LJ_ioCLEAR_STREAM CHANNELS 0 0 0 0 AddRequest 0 LJ ioADD STREAM CHANNEL 2 0 0 0 AddRequest 0 LJ ioADD STREAM CHANNEL 3 0 0 0 GoOne 0 start the stream global scanrate 0 eGet 0 LJ_ioSTART_STREAM 0 scanrate 0 scanrate now has the actual scanrate which you can display on the screen if you want 2011 AzeoTech Inc 9 Analog and Digital I O 61 6 Click on Apply and Compile to save your script 7 Right click on SEQUENCES in the Workspace and select Add Sequence Call the new sequence StopStream and enter the following script ePut 0 LJ_ioSTOP_STREAM 0 0 0 8 Click on Apply and Compile to save your script 9 Click on Page 0 under PAGES in the workspace to display a blank page 10 On that page right click and select Graphs 2D Graph 11 While holding down the Ctrl key click and drag the graph to move it to the top left corner of the page then click and drag the bottom right corner of the graph to expand it to take up about 3 4 of the screen 12 Right click on the graph and select Properties For the Y Expression put Channela Click on New Trace and for the Y Expression put
23. have one LabJack and never expect to use any more you can use 0 zero to have DAQFactory use the first found LabJack on USB Please see the Ethernet setup section if you are using an Ethernet connection to your LabJack UE9 only 6 In the I O Type column select A to D 7 In the Channel column enter 0 to read the first analog input channel on your device 8 The next column Timing determines how often the LabJack is queried for a new value in seconds The default is once a second and we can leave it at this setting 9 Leave all the other settings as is and click Apply As soon as you click Apply acquisition will start Channel T able View Add Duplicate Ee Ti Export Import Apply Discard Main New Group Channel Name Device Type Di 0 Type Chn Timing Offset Conversion Pressure LabJack to D 0 1 00 0 00 None 10 To quickly see your data coming in click on the next to CHANNELS in the workspace to expand the tree then click on your Pressure channel to display the channel view for this channel 11 The channel view has multiple tabs The first two repeat the settings in the channel table Click on the last tab Table to see your values coming in from the device This is not the primary way to view your data but provides a quick indication that you are getting data If you have nothing wired into your LabJack you are most likely going to see a non zero floating voltage reading On some LabJack de
24. in the Workspace and select Add Sequence Give it the name StartUp and click OK 2 In the sequence editor check the box labeled Auto Start then put the following in the script global offset 0 using device labjack include c program files labjack drivers labjackud h AddRequest 0 LJ ioPUT CONFIG LJ chAIN RESOLUTION 18 0 0 AddRequest 0 LJ ioPUT AIN RANGE 0 LJ rgUNI5V 0 0 GoOne 0 The first line is used to adjust for any voltage offset in the signal The next two lines are the standard lines required to access the LabJack UD from script The next three lines set the gain and resolution of the UE9 We ve chosen the most generic range for AINO Your UE9 might be able to use a tighter AIN range and achieve higher precision 3 Click Apply then go to Debug Run this Sequence from the DAQFactory menu to actually set these settings 4 Create a channel for AINO as described back in 3 1 to read the voltage 5 To accurately read the thermocouple we also need to read the temperature of the cold junction which is essentially the temperature of the LabJack This is internal A to D channel 133 Create another channel called CJC to read A to D channel 133 Click Apply to save your changes and start reading the inputs Now we can convert the thermocouple voltage input into temperature 6 Click on CONVERSIONS in the workspace then Add Call the conversion Thermocouple and put the following 2011 AzeoTech Inc
25. manually open a LabJack returning a device number that you can use with the rest of the functions just like before For example to open a UE9 at Ethernet address 192 168 2 1 you might do global DNum private err err OpenLabJack LJ dtUE9 LJ ctETHERNET 192 168 2 1 0 DNum if err LJE_NOERROR failed to open endif This of course assumes you ve done your using and include calls elsewhere already In this example we used static parameters but there is no reason you couldn t replace any or all of the parameters with variables that could be edited by the end user from pages you created Once successfully called you should then use the DNum variable in all your other LabJack function calls A few points e There is no way to close a LabJack This is handled automatically when you quit DAQFactory That said you don t want to go randomly opening LabJacks that don t exist as each attempt will use a little memory that can t be recovered until you quit DAQFactory e If you call OpenLabJack with the exact same parameters the function will not reopen the LabJack but rather will return Device Number of the previously opened LabJack Of course if the first call to OpenLabJack failed it will try again 11 2 Raw In Out and other functions that require array pointers The Raw In and Raw Out functions LJ ioRAW IN L ioRAW OUT and several other functions of the LabJack require an array pointer You can pass a pointer to a
26. on SEQUENCES in the workspace and select Add Sequence 2 Type in a name say StartUp for the new sequence and click OK 3 The sequence editor will appear Click in it and type the following two lines using device labjack include c program files labjack drivers labjackud h You may need to change the path in the second line to match the location of your labjackud h file if you did not install the LabJack drivers in their default location 4 Check the box just above the editor that says Auto Start then click Apply to save your changes 5 If you are going to continue to work on the document without reloading it you ll need to manually run this sequence so right click on the sequence name StartUp in the Workspace and select Begin Sequence The sequence will run instantly so you won t really be able to tell that it ran Next time you load this document the sequence will run and you are ready to go Now an explanation using device labjack DAQFactory supports a wide variety of devices Each device has different functions available to it In LabJack s case some of the functions are AddRequest GoOne etc Because it is possible for two different devices to use the same function names you normally have to prefix all your LabJack function calls with device labjack For example device labjack GoOne 1 If you are only using a LabJack this extra typing can be a pain and makes code harder to read so we allow you to s
27. parts the status alert display which takes up most of the window and the command line which is at the bottom and takes up one line You can type in one line commands here and see the results in the status display You can also do commands that have no display but change things such as outputs So to set our new channel to a value of 3 volts we type Output 3 and hit Enter There will be no confirmation other than the command itself being displayed in the status alert area and no error displayed Your output will also be at 3 volts Command j Alert Output 3 ElCommand Alert A Notes d 3 Like the input channels DAQFactory will automatically set your device into the proper settings for pins with multiple duties So for digital pins for example DAQFactory will automatically set them into output mode Sample file LJGuideSamples InputsSimpleWithDA ctl 2011 AzeoTech Inc 4 Display the data 20 DAQFactory LabJack Application Guide 4 Display the data 4 1 Manipulating screen components Before we explain how to display your data we should quickly explain how to manipulate screen components in DAQFactory Because DAQFactory is a dynamic application meaning you can make edits while your application is actually running DAQFactory does not use the typical Windows click and drag style screen component manipulation Instead you must hold down the Ctrl key While the Ctrl k
28. recommend because every time you reset the counter there is a very short dead period where no counts can be measured At higher count rates you can easily miss counts To avoid this you should use the power of DAQFactory to calculate the difference between two consecutive readings to get a counts per interval reading rather than resetting the counter To do this you will need two channels First we ll assume you have properly initialized your counter as described in the previous section You also probably should reset the counter at startup using AddRequest ID LJ_ioPUT_COUNTER_RESET 0 0 0 0 where the first 0 is the counter number to reset in this case the first counter 1 Create a channel to read the counter Call it RawCounts or similar This will be Device Type LabJack of course D LabJack ID I O Type of Counter Channel desired counter or 0 on devices with only one counter Set the Timing to whatever your desired interval is For counts per second put 1 00 2 Create a second channel that will hold your counts per interval Call it Counts for now This channel will be Device Type Test D 0 I O Type A to D Channel 0 and most importantly Timing 0 Click Apply to save your new channels 3 Click on the next the CHANNELS in the Workspace then click on the RawCounts channel When the channel view appears click on the Event tab Enter the following script Counts AddValue RawCounts 0 RawCounts 1
29. see the graph properly scaled to display your signal zoomed in Notice the rectangle around the graph The left and right sides are green while the top and bottom are purple The purple lines indicate that the Y axis of the graph is frozen A frozen axis ignores the scaling parameters set in the properties window like we did in step 6 above and uses the scaling from an autoscale pan or zoom 9 To thaw the frozen axis right click on the graph and select Freeze Thaw Thaw Y Axis Once thawed the graph will revert to the 0 to 100 scaling indicated in the properties box and the box surrounding the graph will be drawn entirely in green At this point you may wish to change the scaling to 0 to 5 using steps 5 and 6 above since we have divided Pressure by 100 10 Double click on the bottom axis to open the properties to the axis page with the bottom axis selected Next to Time Width enter 120 and click OK If the double click method does not work you can always open the properties window for the graph using normal methods select the Axes page and click on Bottom Axis In a vs time graph the bottom axis does not have a fixed scale It changes as new data comes in so that the new data always appears at the very right of the graph The time width parameter determines how far back in time from the most recent data point is displayed By changing it from the default 60 to 120 we have told the graph to plot the last 2 minutes of data Once ag
30. settings 1 Enable a Timer AddRequest ID LJ_ioPUT_CONFIG LJ_chNUMBER_TIMERS ENABLED 1 0 0 2 Set the mode AddRequest ID LIJ ioPUT TIMER MODE 0 IJ tmFIRMCOUNTERDEBOUNCE 0 0 3 Set the clock frequency and divisor use system clock so works on U3 and UEQ AddRequest ID LJ ioPUT CONFIG LJ chTIMER CLOCK BASE LJ tcsSYS 0 0 AddRequest ID LJ ioPUT CONFIG LJ chTIMER CLOCK DIVISOR 48 0 0 4 Set the debounce settings to a single 87ms period positive edges counted AddRequest ID LJ ioPUT TIMER VALUE 0 257 0 0 5 GoOne to actually execute the commands 2011 AzeoTech Inc 10 Counters and Timers 75 GoOne ID 6 Create a channel to read the Timer I O Type is Timer Channel is the timer in this case 0 You can reset the timer to 0 by using LJ_ioPUT_TIMER_VALUE put please read the section on resetting counters and how to get around it AddRequest ID LJ_ioPUT_TIMER_VALUE 0 0 0 0 Sample file LJGuideSamples TimerFirmCount ctl 10 5 6 Frequency out Frequency out is similar to PWM but outputs a 50 duty cycle square wave Because its fixed at 50 duty a wider range of frequencies are attainable Setup is similar to PWM except the Timer value we specify is another divisor for the clock Set the timer counter pin offset to 0 which will put the first timer counter on FIO4 AddRequest ID LJ ioPUT CONFIG LJ chTIMER COUNTER PIN OFFSET 4 0 0
31. unique conversion for each thermocouple since each input might have a slightly different Offset and Gain In this case you d need to replace Offset and Gain in the conversion with the actual number for the corresponding input once you have figured these out 2011 AzeoTech Inc 10 Counters and Timers 10 Counters and Timers 69 10 Counters and Timers 10 1 Configuring The counters and timers on the LabJack units are quite flexible In order to configure them you have to use some basic scripting similar to the script we ve seen so far Because setting up a counter or timer typically requires setting multiple parameters we recommend using the AddRequest GoOne GetResult method instead of ePut but really its up to you There are also several e functions you can use namely eTCValues and eTCConfig but these functions require you to define variables so take as many if not more steps than using AddRequest Internally these functions call AddRequest anyway so we recommend just using AddRequest from the start eTCValues however could be useful if you were using a number of timers and counters and not using Channels to store the results but that is beyond the scope of this guide 10 2 Reading values for counters and input timers Reading the values of counters and timers can of course be done with script as well using the LJ_ioGET_COUNTER and LJ_ioGET_TIMER commands However you can
32. your own custom pages for viewing the data in real time using drag and drop controls like gauges symbols and trend graphs You can then access it from anywhere using a browser and allow others access to the screens as well To establish a connection between your application and the DAQConnect service you will need a DAQConnect account Create Account If you already have an account you will need to login Login 2 Click on Create Account when the DAQConnect window opens or if you already have a DAQConnect account click Login login and proceed to step 4 This will create a DAQConnect account allowing you to send data to the web There s a free plan so you can try it without providing a credit card or much of anything else You will not need to login every time you start DAQFactory just when you want to link a DAQFactory application to a DAQConnect data source 3 Fill in the form with the appropriate details and click Create Account When the Select Plan page appears you can leave it on the free plan or select a higher plan for more capabilities and click Continue If you select a paid plan you will be taken to the credit card page otherwise you will go directly to the screen to create a new data source 4 Enter Tank for your new data source name and click Create 2011 AzeoTech Inc 28 DAQFactory LabJack Application Guide DAG V Connect create Link wi Intro sf Login Create Account
33. 0 0 These both follow the standard form of PUT CONFIG LabJack ID LI ioPUT CONFIG Parameter Value 0 0 The clock divisor is an integer For timer base there are several constants defined LJ tcsys all system clock varies depending on device LJ tc750KHZ VE9 750 khz LJ tc2MHZ U3 Hardware Version 1 20 or lower LJ_tc6MHZ U3 Hardware Version 1 20 or lower LJ_tc24MHZ U3 Hardware Version 1 20 or lower LJ_tc500KHZ DIV U3 Hardware Version 1 20 or lower LJ_tc2MHZ DIV U3 Hardware Version 1 20 or lower LJ_tc6MHZ DIV U3 Hardware Version 1 20 or lower LJ tc24MHZ DIV U3 Hardware Version 1 20 or lower LJ_tc4MHZ U3 Hardware Version 1 21 or higher LJ_tc12MHZ U3 Hardware Version 1 21 or higher LJ_tc48MHZ U3 Hardware Version 1 21 or higher LJ_tc1MHZ DIV U3 Hardware Version LJ_tc4MHZ DIV U3 Hardware Version LJ tc12MHZ DIV U3 Hardware Version LJ tc48MHZ DIV U3 Hardware Version 21 or higher 21 or higher 21 or higher 21 or higher BIRR RR BR 2011 AzeoTech Inc 10 Counters and Timers 71 Once again not all clock bases are supported by all LabJacks and you should check the LabJackUD h file for any new bases 10 4 Resetting Counters A common use for counters is to count the number of events that occur within a preset time often within a second In these cases it is tempting to reset the counter after each interval This however is not
34. 001 is LJE RECONNECT ConfigureLJ endif This of course assumes that your configuration sequence is called ConfigureLJ We can use Left instead of Find because Disconnect and Reconnect errors never come from Channel Timing loops 2011 AzeoTech Inc 54 DAQFactory LabJack Application Guide Now if you have multiple LabJacks you ll also need to look at which LabJack got reconnected In the example above we assumed a D ID of 0 meaning first found To further parse it if left strAlert 6 DOO50 we have a labjack error private ID strtodouble mid strAlert 6 2 retrieve ID if mid strAlert 9 4 2001 reconnect ConfigureLJ ID endif endif This assumes that ConfigureLJ is setup to take the desired ID as the parameter You might instead want to use a separate sequence for each ID This code just uses basic string manipulation functions to pull out the appropriate information left s n returns the first n characters from the string s mid s i n returns n characters from character number i in the string s Like everything else in DAQFactory i is zero indexed so the first character of the string is i 0 strtodouble s converts the given string s into a number 8 5 Error handling in script OnAlert works great for errors triggered by Channel Timing by streaming and to handle disconnects If however you are using the various LabJack functions like AddRequest GoOne
35. AQFactory LabJack Application Guide Main Color Size Action Add Action SetTo yi ds th oft Delete Action Channel ou 0 Range and n Interval 1 New Pagels Press lt Enter gt between pages 8 Leave the Range blank and click OK The range allows you to constrain the inputs to particular values By leaving these properties blank we are indicating that we do not wanta range limitation The page will now display your caption and either the most recent setting for Output or a 0 with a big red X through it if you started from the last sample document The red X indicates that Output does not have a valid value yet This is because we haven t set it to anything 9 Click on the component A new window will appear requesting a new value Enter a voltage value within the DAC range such as 2 and click OK Output will now be set to the value you entered The component will now display your new value without the big red X If you tie a wire between DACO and FIOO U3 or AINO UE9 you will see the Pressure reading track with the DAC output though multiplied by 100 Note if you d like to be able to enter an output value in units other then volts you need to create a Conversion and apply it to your output channel We talked about conversions a little earlier Conversions on output channels work in reverse With regular input conversions the formula is used to convert the devices units usually volts to
36. AzeoTech DAQFactory DAQFactory LabJack Application Guide U3 U6 UE9x 9 18 2011 DAQFactory LabJack Application Guide DAQFactory for Windows Version 5 86 Sunday September 18 2011 Copyright 2001 2011 AzeoTech Inc All rights reserved worldwide Information in this document is subject to change without notice AzeoTech is a registered trademark of AzeoTech Inc DAQFactory is a registered trademark of AzeoTech Inc Other brand and product names are trademarks of their respective holders This manual Copyright 2011 AzeoTech Inc All rights reserved worldwide No portion of this manual may be copied modified translated or reduced into machine readable form without the prior written consent of AzeoTech Inc Contents 3 Table of Contents 1 Introduction 7 1 1 Welcome gt ee iii 7 1 2 How to use UE UL TEE 7 1 3 DAQFactory A 7 2 Installing and Starting 10 2 1 installation lt il ili iL lato 10 ET EE 10 2 3 Starting DAQKACtOly s 5 silk must k k EERSTEN EENS See 11 2A Etemel Te EE 12 3 Basic I O read write analog digital 15 9 1 Reading BT 15 3 2 Differential analoq pute ees iaia 16 3 3 Channel Pinouts rh Ea LL Lil HIR R DV hae EW HA Ee VE kan EKS ader 16 E dl Weu UE 17 4 Display the data 20 4 1 Manipulating screen COMPONENMS ceceeceeeeeee kana ta aa ee eeeneeeeeenseee sense AA WARA KAW WERA WA WERA WA WAREK AA WERA WA WARA R WA WAA 20 4 2 Variable value compon
37. CONFIG LJ chNUMBER TIMERS ENABLED 2 0 0 After you have enabled the timers you ll need to set which mode you d like to use for each timer For example AddRequest ID LJ ioPUT TIMER MODE 0 LJ tmPWM8 0 0 will set the Timer mode of timer 0 to PWM8 The general form of this command is LabJack ID LJ ioPUT TIMER MODE Timer Timer mode code 0 0 Possible Timer modes as of this writing include LJ_tmPWM16 16 bit PWM LJ_tmPWM8 8 bit PWM LJ tmRISINGEDGES32 32 bit rising to rising edge measurement LJ tmFALLINGEDGES32 32 bit falling to falling edge measurement LJ tmDUTYCYCLE duty cycle measurement LJ tmFIRMCOUNTER firmware based rising edge counter LJ tmFIRMCOUNTERDEBOUNCE firmware counter with debounce LJ tmFREQOUT frequency output LJ tmQUAD Quadrature LJ tmTIMERSTOP stops another timer after n pulses LJ tmSYSTIMERLOW read lower 32 bits of system timer LJ tmSYSTIMERHIGH read upper 32 bits of system timer LJ tmRISINGEDGES16 16 bit rising to rising edge measurement LJ tmFALLINGEDGES16 16 bit falling to falling edge measurement Not all modes may be supported by all LabJacks Please see the file LabJackUD h in your LabJack installation directory for any new modes Finally you ll probably need to set the clock base and divisor that the timer will use AddRequest ID LJ ioPUT CONFIG LJ_chTIMER_CLOCK_BASE LJ tcSYS 0 0 AddRequest ID LJ ioPUT CONFIG LJ chTIMER CLOCK DIVISOR 48
38. IMER CLOCK DIVISOR 48 0 0 4 GoOne to actually execute the commands GoOne ID 5 Create a channel to read the Timer I O Type is Timer Channel is the timer in this case 0 The difference between the rising and falling edge versions of these modes is self explanatory The 32 bit versions allow you to measure longer lengths with higher clock frequencies and thus higher resolution for long periods but are subject to small errors because it is interrupt driven If your lengths are short enough that the edges will always occur within 65535 clock cycles you should use the 16 bit versions as they are not subject to the interrupt errors If you want to read the timer from script you can use L ioGET TIMER private datain eGet ID LJ ioGET TIMER 0 datain 0 Sample file LIGuideSamples TimerPeriodIn cti 10 5 3 Duty cycle in Duty cycle in is similar to setup as period in The difference is that duty cycle in returns two values the number of clock cycles the signal is high and the number of cycles the signal is low packed into one 32 bit number These two values therefore are 16 bit so you ll need to pick a clock frequency and divisor that won t overflow the 65535 counts possible Setting up these modes is just a matter of performing all the basic steps we ve described 1 Enable a Timer AddRequest ID LJ_ioPUT_CONFIG LJ_chNUMBER_TIMERS_ENABLED 1 0 0 2 Set the mode AddRequest ID LJ ioPUT TIMER MODE 0
39. J type or K type which determine the metals used which then determines the temperature range and voltage output scaling In all cases this voltage is between about 5 and 5 2011 AzeoTech Inc 9 Analog and Digital I O 65 millivolts a rather small voltage It gets more complicated though since the terminals on your DAQ device the LabJack are made of yet another metal there are two more points where different metals are touching which are generating a voltage proportional to the temperature of this terminal This is called the cold junction In order to get an accurate thermocouple reading you have to adjust for the cold junction This is called cold junction compensation Finally we should mention that most thermocouples are only accurate to about 1 or 2 degrees C though calibration can help a little with this Now that you have the basics down we can talk about how to read a thermocouple There are several choices depending on what LabJack you have U3 the U3 has a resolution of 12 bit and a range of 2 44 the minimum voltage you can read is about 1 2 millivolts 4 88 volts 4096 steps Because a thermocouple typically outputs around 40 microvolts per degC you only get a precision of about 30 degrees Obviously that isn t going to work so you have to use an amplifier such as the LITIA or EI1040 both available from LabJack to amplify that millivolt signal before it gets to the converter UE9 the UE9 has
40. V 0 0 GoOne 0 3 Click on Apply and Compile to save your changes When you specify AutoStart the sequence is run when the document is loaded It is not rerun every time you save changes so you ll need to run the sequence at this point 4 Right click on the sequence name StartUp in the workspace and select Begin Sequence This will run the sequence and configure the LabJack If you change this sequence for example to set the resolution to 16 bit you will need to rerun the sequence to actually send the commands to the LabJack A few comments e This code uses ID 0 which means First Found in DAQFactory If you have multiple LabJacks you ll need to replace the 0 in the AddRequest and GoOne functions with your ID Unlike the code in the LabJack User s Manual you do not need to perform an Open on the LabJack as DAQFactory will automatically open and find the desired LabJack as long as its connected via USB If connected over Ethernet please see the section on Ethernet setup e You may need to change the path in the second line to match the location of your labjackud h file if you did not install the LabJack drivers in their default location e The LJ_ioPIN_CONFIGURATION_RESET ensures that the LabJack is in its original state before we configure it This is a good precaution and should be included after your include line even if you aren t going to do any other configuration in your AutoStart sequence You can use ePut instea
41. You would not for example want to fire off an email with every error If you were reading an input once a second and the LabJack was unplugged accidentally for 3 minutes DAQFactory would send 180 emails one for each failed read Since sending emails on error is a common task here is probably the best way to solve the repetitive email dilemma instead of firing off an email with every alert add each new alert to the body and have a second sequence send out the email every so often if alerts have occurred The details of sending email from DAQFactory are described in the next chapter but to build up the email body you d do this in the OnAlert if find strAlert D0050 0 1 strEmailBody strAlert chr 13 chr 10 endif The chr 13 chr 10 add a carriage return line feed to the end of each alert so that you don t get all your alerts strung out on a single line in your email Now you just need a sequence to fire off the email every so often say 30 minutes To do so create a new sequence probably marked AutoStart with the following script global string strEmailBody initialize the variable for accumulating errors put common email configuration stuff here email strHost mail mymail com email strUser me mymail com email strPassword password email strTo me myhome com email strFrom me mymail com initial configuration done so loop forever while 1 check if an alert has occurred if
42. abJack perform the timing The LabJack can then send data back in blocks and relieve your CPU from constantly having to do things The LabJacks support streaming of both digital and analog inputs as well as timers and counters This section explains how to setup and performed streamed data acquisition 9 2 2 Basic streaming When you want to read inputs at rates faster than 100hz or at very precise intervals it is usually best to use the LabJack s stream mode instead of having DAQFactory and the PC set the read rates Anything above 100hz is difficult for a PC to perform since it has so many other tasks to do as well To setup streaming in DAQFactory you will need to use a combination of Channels and sequence script Streaming in DAQFactory is different from how the LabJack User Manual describes as DAQFactory handles all the callback and data collection putting the data into the appropriate channels In this sample we ll stream 2 channels 1 Start DAQFactory up with a new document 2 Click on CHANNELS in the Workspace to go to the channel table 3 Add two new channels ChannelA and ChannelB both Device Type LabJack D 0 I O Type A to D and Channel numbers 2 and 3 Set the Timing for both channels to 0 and the History set to 36000 3 Click on Apply to save your changes 4 Right click on SEQUENCES in the Workspace and select Add Sequence Call the new sequence StartStream 5 In the sequence editor window that appears enter the
43. aching but these are important points and will save you headaches down the road no matter whether you are scripting in DAQFactory making webpages in PhP or coding in Visual Basic You d be amazed at how many support calls we get because people didn t properly indent can t figure out code they wrote a year ago or don t see their decimal points Indenting Proper indenting of your script is very important You should indent in 3 spaces on the line after any block level command such as if While for try or switch and indent out 3 spaces before the end of block commands such as endif endwhile endfor or endcatch Some lines do both such as else and catch Here s a simple example of proper indenting Don t worry about the script itself just look at the indenting while 1 try if x gt 3 vs 1 else y 2 endif catch y 4 endcatch delay 1 endwhile Even if you don t understand any of the script above you have to admit that this is easier to read than 2011 AzeoTech Inc 40 DAQFactory LabJack Application Guide while 1 try if x gt 3 y 1 else y 2 endif catch y 4 endcatch delay 1 endwhile OK perhaps both are just unintelligible geek talk to you but soon you will understand and you should get into the habit of indenting properly from the start There really are no excuses not to indent unless of course your keyboard lacks a space bar Commen
44. across two channels You ll have to combine them The easiest way is probably to use a calculated V channel Here s how to do it plus convert the counts to actual seconds 1 Right click on CHANNELS under V in the Workspace and select Add V Channel Give it a name such as LJSystemClock 2 In the Expression area enter the following and click Apply SysTimerLow SysTimerHigh lt lt 32 4e6 This assumes you named your timer channels SysTimerLow and SysTimerHigh It also assumes a U3 with a 4Mhz clock For the UE9 change the 4e6 4 million to 750e3 750 thousand You can now use this V channel anywhere you would a regular channel You just have to prepend V in front of the channel name V LJSystemClock Sample file see Triggered Streaming Please note that DAQFactory uses 64 bit double precision floating point for all numbers This representation has 52 bits of precision on the integer side so you can only really store up to 52 bits of this counter As the counter gets above 2 A 52 you will lose precision in the low order bits 2011 AzeoTech Inc 11 Advanced 11 Advanced 79 11 Advanced 11 1 Opening a LabJack manually There may be applications most likely ones running in the Runtime version of DAQFactory where you do not know the ID or address of the LabJack when creating the application and so can t hard code this in Because of this the LabJack driver has a function to allow you to
45. age right click and select Buttons Button 2 Right click on your new button component and select Properties Change the caption to Start Stop 3 Click on the Action tab and select Start Stop Logging Set then in the combo select our MyLog logging set then 2011 AzeoTech Inc 5 Logging 33 click OK Button Component x Main Action Add Action star Stop Logging Set vi Las zi 1of1 Delete PE Logging Set j MyLog w l Toggle between and Interval oa New Page s Press lt Enter gt between pages At this point we have a button that will start and stop the logging set But it doesn t tell us if the logging set is actually running For this we ll use a descriptive text component We can treat the status of the logging set which is either running or not running as a digital input 4 Right click on the page again and select Displays Descriptive Text 5 Right click on this new component and select Properties 6 For the Expression type logging mylog running 7 Change the word Text in the Text table to Not Logging and then click Add to add a new row putting 1 in the new row under Threshold and Logging for the Text Click OK to close the window The logging mylog running is a variable of the our mylog logging set which will equal O if the logging set is not logging and 1 if itis To differentiate between the running variable of the mylog logging set an
46. ain if you zoom autoscale or pan the graph along the x axis it will freeze the x axis and the graph will no longer update with newly acquired values You must then thaw the axis to have the graph display the trace as normal Sample file LJGuideSamples Graphing ctl 4 6 Outputting with variable value component In addition to taking data most systems also control outputs Here we will create an output channel and control it manually from a page component We ll assume you still have that Output channel we created earlier 1 Click on Page 0 in the Workspace to go to our first page 2 Right click in a blank area of the page and select Displays Variable Value to create another variable value component 3 Right click on the new component and select Properties to open the properties window 4 For the expression enter output 0 Like before this will simply display the most recent value of the out channel Feel free to set the caption as well 5 Click on Action tab This tab exists on several different components including the static ones and works the same way with all of them 6 From the Action drop down select Set To There are many different options for the Action described in the DAQFactory help The Set To action will prompt the user for a new value when the component is clicked and apply the entered value to the channel or variable 7 Next go to Action Channel type output 2011 AzeoTech Inc 26 D
47. analog input channels and set their Timing to 0 001 This will chew up much of the processor power of one of your cores but will leave Windows the other core to perform its tasks In fact as I am typing this I have DAQFactory running reading an analog input from a LabJack at full speed and I see no lag in my typing That all said its important to understand that there is a limit to how fast the LabJack itself can process commands If you perform the test with a few Channels with Timing 0 001 and then go to the Table tab of one of the channels you will see that the data actually comes in about every 4 milliseconds This is because although DAQFactory is trying to read it at 1 millisecond intervals the LabJack is taking about 4 milliseconds to actually perform the command 11 5 Unsupported functions The LJ_ioSET_STREAM_CALLBACK LJ_ioSET_EVENT_CALLBACK and any other LabJack function that requires a function pointer are not supported These particular two callback s are handled internally by DAQFactory The first allows DAQFactory to process streaming data while the second handles connect and disconnect messages from the driver Also you should not change the L chSTREAM WAIT MODE as all waiting is handled internally If you change this you will most likely cause streaming to stop functioning 2011 AzeoTech Inc
48. anced feature of the LabJack and the details of SPI is beyond the scope of this guide Instead here is some sample code that demonstrates SPI It will use FIOO for the clock CLK FIO1 for CS FIO2 for MOSI and FIO3 for MISO It then sends out a string of 16 bytes and prints the received string to the command alert window If you short MISO to MOSI then the 16 bytes sent out are echoed back If MISO is tied to GND then all zeros are received and printed If you tie MISO to VS or leave it unconnected then all 255 s are received and printed Here s the script Its pretty much a direct copy of the C sample provided by LabJack using device labjack include c program files labjack drivers labjackud h global ID 0 use first found First we do a pin config reset to set the LabJack to factory defaults ePut ID LJ_ioPIN_CONFIGURATION_RESET 0 0 0 Configure the SPI communication Enable automatic chip select control AddRequest ID LJ_ioPUT_CONFIG LJ_chSPI_AUTO_CS 1 0 0 Mode A CPHA 1 CPOL 1 AddRequest ID LJ ioPUT CONFIG LJ chSPI MODE 0 0 0 125kHz clock AddRequest ID LJ ioPUT CONFIG LJ chSPI CLOCK FACTOR O0 0 0Q MOSI is FIO2 AddRequest ID LJ ioPUT CONFIG LJ chSPI MOSI PIN NUM 2 0 0 MISO is FIO3 AddRequest ID LJ ioPUT CONFIG LJ chSPI MISO PIN NUM 3 0 0 CLK is FIOO AddRequest ID LJ ioPUT CONFIG LJ chSPI CLK PIN NUM 0 0 0 CS is FIO1 AddRequest ID LJ_ioPUT_CONFIG
49. and resize the graph so it takes up most of the screen by holding down the Ctrl key and dragging the component Drag the small black square boxes at the corners of the selected graph to resize Next open the properties window for the graph by right clicking on the graph and selecting Properties 3 Next to Y Expression type Pressure The Y expression is an expression just like the others we have seen so far The difference is that a graph expects a list or array of values to plot where in the previous components we have only wanted the most recent value By simply naming the channel in the Y expression and not putting a 0 after it we are telling the 2011 AzeoTech Inc 24 DAQFactory LabJack Application Guide graph we want the entire history of values stored in memory for the channel The history length which determines how many values are kept in memory and therefore how far back in time we can plot is one of the parameters of each channel that we left in its default setting of 3600 x Traces Axes General Colors Fonts Axis Bound Annotations Line Annotations Traces Y Expression pressure T Pressure X Expression me n Axis zl r Eror Bars Legend Y Positive Trace Color i _ _ Y Negative e DD Line Type Medium Solid zl YEndWidih 5 piek Point Type tice zl X Positive Name Ir DEE X Negative Wind Barbs X End width 5 pixels Deco x r Speed Ir i End Thickness
50. ange the file name to include the current time whenever the logging set is started 1 Right click on the Start Stop Logging button we created at the beginning of this section and select Properties 2 Go to the Action tab and change the Action to Quick Sequence Enter the following script if logging mylog running endlogging mylog else logging mylog strFileName c daqfactory mydata_ formatdatetime y m d_ H M S systime csv beginlogging mylog endif 3 Click OK and give the button a try You should see the variable value component update with a new filename every time the logging set starts up Note that clicking on the variable value component to change the filename has been rendered moot as the start stop button will reset the filename To explain the script above In the first line we see if the logging set is running 2011 AzeoTech Inc 5 Logging 35 If it is running then in the second line we stop the logging set Otherwise in the fourth line we set the filename The filename is made up of three strings combined together The first and last parts are static c mydata_ and csv The middle part contains the date The FormatDateTime function takes what is called a specifier that determines how you would like the date and time displayed In this case it will be Year Month Day_Hour Minute Second with no spaces Please see the DAQFactory help for more details on possible sp
51. at Error occurred on channel type d io type d code d ch io err endwhile The first three lines are the calls to the LabJack driver to configure the first found LabJack We then declare three private variables to hold our error information The GetNextError function shows our first example of passing variables by reference in DAQFactory which is used in many of the LabJack functions Putting the in front of the parameter when calling GetNextError indicates that the reference to that variable is being passed to the function allowing the function to actually change the value of that variable GetNextError is a little unique in that it both returns the error code and sets a variable to the error code in a single call This allows us to look for LJE_NOERROR in our loop while still retrieving the error code while GetNextError 0 ch io err This line loops for as long as GetNextError returns a non zero value meaning there are errors If no errors occurred the code inside the loop will not execute If an error did occur the I O type for example 2011 AzeoTech Inc 8 Calling the LabJackUD 55 LI ioPUT AIN RANGE the channel for example 2 and the error code are put in our private variables The next line Format Error occurred on channel type d io type d code d ch io err Simply prints a formatted message with those values Please see the DAQFactory User s Guide on using the F
52. ause the component to display the word Off when Output is 0 5 Next click on the Add button to create a new row in the table and put 1 for the Threshold and on for the Text This will cause the component to display the word On when Output is 1 It doesn t matter what the order of the rows are in the table DAQFactory will sort them once you close the window 2011 AzeoTech Inc 4 Display the data 23 Main color Size Action Caption Expression Output 0 rr Text Threshold y Text Eont Arial gt 0 000000 Off Font Size 16 points H 1 000000 On Speed Key a Quick Digital In Sequence Tria Digital Qut PID Loop Tig OK Cancel 6 Click OK Then go to the command alert window and type output 0 and hit Enter and watch the new component display Off Type output 1 and hit Enter and the component will change to On Add Delete DAQFactory actually provides a quicker way to set this up 7 Right click on our text component and select Properties 8 Click on the button towards the bottom right labeled Digital In This will popup a window requesting a channel Type Output and click OK Then click OK to close the properties This button essentially did steps 3 through 5 in one step It also setup the colors so that Off displays in red and On displays in green Go ahead and type Output 0 and Output 1 in the Command Al
53. canrate now has the actual scanrate which you can display on the screen if you want 6 Create 4 channels to receive this timing data in addition to the 2 you created to receive the analog input All 6 channels are I O type A to D Timing 0 Channel s will be 3 4 200 201 224 and 225 That completes it When you run your script the stream will start streaming both analog inputs 2 and 3 as well as the system timer A scan will occur every time a trigger is detected on FIO2 FIOO and FIO1 are used by the 2 timers With each scan your six channels will update The time associated with these channels will be incorrect but channels 200 224 201 and 225 will contain the 4 words that make up the 64 bit system timer value While this is not absolute time it will give you relative time between each triggered scan Just use the difference in counts divided by the system clock speed of 750khz for the UE9 to determine the actual number of seconds between scans The best way to do this is to create a calculated V channel 7 Right click on CHANNELS under V in the Workspace Note this is note the same CHANNELS that we ve been clicking before Select Add V Channel 8 Call the new channel TheTime 9 Click on the new channel in the workspace In the Expression window put TimerLowLow TimerLowHigh 2 16 TimerHighLow 2432 TimerHighHigh 2448 This assumes you named channel 200 TimerLowLow 224 TimerLowHigh 201 TimerHighLow and 225 Time
54. channel table and for the AINO channel you created in step 4 select the Thermocouple conversion you just created and click Apply That is it You can now display or plot the input channel You can adjust the offset variable to adjust for any bias in the LabJack by changing it in the sequence we created in step 2 and rerunning it or by creating a screen control to adjust its value shown in the samples Same thing with the gain 2011 AzeoTech Inc 9 Analog and Digital I O 67 It doesn t really matter what amplifier you use You can just adjust the offset and gain appropriately Sample file LIGuideSamples U3 LJTIA Thermocouple cti Sample file LIGuideSamples UE9 LJTIA Thermocouple cti These sample doesn t use a conversion but instead puts the formula in the components themselves Conversions are typically easier since you typically only want to see the temperature however for calibration you often want the raw voltage and so can t use a conversion Sample file LIGuideSamples U3 LJTIA Thermocouple Conversion cti This is identical to the U3 LJTIA Thermocouple sample but uses a Conversion to convert from volts to temperature You can see the Conversion by clicking CONVERSIONS in the workspace A Conversion converts the data as it comes in so the channel FIO4 shows temperature immediately You never see volts Conversions can also be applied to multiple channels That said for thermocouples you will probably want a
55. cripting USING EGEL rin 57 9 1 4 More advanced using Add Go Get 58 9 1 5 Controlling outputs acR ini ek nk k l Ka eki ail 59 9 2 High speed acquisition streaming ri 60 CR TEE 60 9 2 2 Basic streaming rire iii iii 60 9 2 3 Streaming other iMputs cccseseeeeeseeeseeeeenseeseenseeseeeeenees 61 9 2 4 Triggered A siiristeseseraaiesbastosonsinanbaipotanstoannassonasonpannasmasanouna 62 9 2 5 Error handling for streaming 64 9 3 TREFMOCOUPIOS isie else axake ka sana ae a ka on aksan aw ne xalk ewe ko cede ano iii kon ante x inonde anka 64 9 3 1 Unamplified Thermocouple Readings snrrrreeiiere rire rie e eee iii erre eee ein 65 9 3 2 Amplified Thermocouple Readings nrrrerreiceeeceee rie eri e eee iii iii eine 66 10 Counters and Timers 69 lh Rei e UNION EE 69 10 2 Reading values for counters and input tiMelS cccseeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeseeeeeeeeseeeeeseseeneeeeeseeeeneneneeeenes 69 10 3 Basic Counter and Timer S tup cccseccesseeeeeeeeeseeeseseeeeeneneeseaeseeseeeeneeeesseaeseseeeeneeeeesneesaaeeeeeeneenas 69 10 4 Resetting Counters eni iii 71 10 5 Setting up specific timer modes l l lililLEmEkkkkkk eka k aka kk ka kk KAK AA KARA HARA HARA H HAAA HARA HARA H HAAA WARA 72 10 5 1 PWM out 72 10 5 2 Period in 72 10 5 3 Duty cycle in 73 2011 AzeoTech Inc
56. ctory Express starts 2 blank pages are generated automatically with default names With Express you are limited to 2 pages but with all the other versions of DAQFactory you can create as many pages as you need 2 Right click somewhere in the middle of the blank area and select Displays Variable Value This will place a new page component on the screen There are many different components available that allow you to create custom screens This particular component simply displays a changing value in text form 3 Right click on the new component and select Properties All of the screen components have different properties windows for configuring the look of the component and telling the component what data to display 4 Next to Caption enter Pressure The caption is what is displayed in front of your value A colon is automatically added when displayed 5 Next to Expression enter Pressure 0 Expressions are actually formulas that you can enter to display calculated data In this case the formula simply requests the most recent data point of the channel pressure The 0 indicates the most recent data point If for example we wanted to convert the pressure voltage into actually pressure units we could put something like Pressure 0 5 500 2011 AzeoTech Inc 4 Display the data 21 Yariable Yalue Comps t ES Main Color Size Action Caption Pressure Expression DECH Units fv Prec
57. d in this case since you are only doing one command ePut 0 LJ ioPIN CONFIGURATION RESET 0 0 0 e You could also use the ePut function but its generally better to use AddRequest and GoOne when you need to perform more than one command at a time e Please review the LabJack User s Manual and the LabJackUD h file for information on all the constants and configuration commands possible There are also examples in the appropriate sections later in this document 2011 AzeoTech Inc 52 DAQFactory LabJack Application Guide 8 3 Error handling with OnAlert There are several ways to handle LabJack errors from within DAQFactory The correct way depends a bit on what you are doing and whether you actually want to do something if an error occurs If you are just performing basic I O using Channels without any scripting then any LabJack errors will appear in the Command Alert window Streaming errors also appear this way If you cannot see the Command Alert window go to View Command Alert from the DAQFactory main menu This allows you to see the errors but you can t perform any automated action if an error occurs If you need to monitor errors automatically and perform an action when one occurs then you should use the OnAlert DAQFactory event As an example here is how you would make the background of Page_0 turn red if a LabJack error occurs resetting to white with a button press acknowledgement 1
58. d of calling it every time It doesn t really matter but it makes things more efficient So 1 Right click on SEQUENCES in the Workspace and select Add Sequence Give it the name StartUp and click OK 2 In the sequence editor check the box labeled Auto Start then put the following in the script adjusting for your server settings email strHost mail myISP com email strUserName bob myISP com email strPassword password email strReplyAddress bob myISP com email strAuthenticate AuthLogin You may need to tweak this last item Depending on your server it could be NoLogin AuthLogin or LoginPlain Also most servers require a ReplyAddress so make sure and set this one as well 3 Click Apply then go to Debug Run this Sequence from the DAQFactory menu to actually set these settings Now that the basics are set you can create code to actually send the email Unless you are only going to send a message from one place you may want to create a little Sequence function you can call to send an email with a given message For example if you are sending messages for alarms 4 Right click on SEQUENCES in the Workspace and select Add Sequence Give it the name SendEmail and click OK Note we can t use Email as a name because it is used by DAQFactory 5 In the sequence editor put the following script adjusting as needed function SendEmail string Message email strTo my myhome com email strCC theboss h
59. d the running variable of other logging sets sequences etc we have to specify exactly what we want logging means we want a logging set mylog means we want the logging set called mylog and running is a variable of the logging set mylog Descriptive Text Component x Main Color Size Action Caption Expression Ss HyLog Running Text Threshold T Text Font DS 0 000000 Not Logging Font Size 15 points gt 1 000000 Logging Speed Key ER Quick Digital In Sequence Trig Digital Out PID Loop Tria Delete OK Cancel Now if you click on the button you will see the descriptive text component change from Not Logging to Logging and back The logging set is also starting and stopping 2011 AzeoTech Inc 34 DAQFactory LabJack Application Guide Changing the logging file name Now that we can start and stop the logging set we need to create a way to change the file name of our logging set The file name is just another variable of the logging set strFileName so we ll access it using logging mylog strFileName 1 Right click somewhere on the page and select Displays Variable Value 2 Right click on the new component and select Properties 3 Change the Caption to Logging Path set the Expression to logging mylog strFileName and clear out the Units This sets up the display 4 Click on the Action tab and then
60. dRequest 0 LJ ioPUT CONFIG LJ chAIN RESOLUTION 14 0 0 AddRequest 0 LJ ioPUT AIN RANGE 2 LJ rgBIP5V 0 0 AddRequest 0 LJ ioPUT AIN RANGE 3 LJ rgBIP5V 0 0 GoOne 0 This was explained earlier in the chapter on scripting 9 1 3 Basic scripting using eGet Channels however aren t always the best choice and sometimes you need script The next step up from channels is to use basic scripting and the eGet function to retrieve a single value or ePut to set a single value For example to read channel 1 and then put the result into a channel called MyChannel we would do private err private val private string message while 1 err eGet 0 LJ ioGET AIN l val 0 if err ErrorToString err imessage message else MyChannel AddValue val endif delay 1 endwhile Now truthfully this next code snippet does the exact same thing provided MyChannel is setup to read channel 1 2011 AzeoTech Inc 58 DAQFactory LabJack Application Guide while 1 read MyChannel delay 1 endwhile The read function allows you to trigger the reading of a channel from script instead of using the Channel s Timing parameter But this code does not allow for any direct error handling and of course doesn t demonstrate the eGet function eGet is also more useful when you don t know your channel numbers at runtime In the first example we used scalar values in our eGet function call but there is
61. dvanced things like send email FTP documents popup windows and of course perform basic math functions like Sin Cos and Tan Calling a function in DAQFactory is pretty much like every other scripting language math tool or even Excel For example to get the Sin of 0 92 we would do sin 0 92 This is a function that returns a value in this case 0 7956016200364 There are also functions that perform an action but don t return a value email send Functions can take a varying number of parameters The Sin example has one parameter 0 92 while the email send example has none To specify more than one parameter in a function you should separate each parameter by a comma smooth mydata 10 DAQFactory also allows you to create your own functions using Sequences In fact a sequence that you create in the Workspace can either be started on its own to run concurrently with other script or called as a function from 2011 AzeoTech Inc 42 DAQFactory LabJack Application Guide other script If it is started on its own it cannot have any parameters and it will not return a value When called as a function you can pass in up to 20 parameters and return a value So for example if you decided you don t like the fact that sin takes angles in radians and want to create a function called MySin that takes degrees instead 1 Right click on SEQUENCES in the Workspace and select Add Sequence 2 Enter the nam
62. e MySin and click OK 3 In the script editor that appears enter the following code function MySin degs private result sin degs pi 180 return result 4 Click Apply and Compile then click in the command part of the Command Alert window the bottom part and put MySin 90 and hit Enter You ll see it will display 1 the sin of 90 degrees A few points a you don t have to do the function declaration as shown in the first line of the MySin script but doing so allows you to name your parameters and thus makes your code cleaner b we could easily have combined the 2nd and 3rd lines of the script and skipped creating a private variable but we wanted to show variable declaration in action 6 2 4 Conditional statements Probably the most commonly used scripting statement is the if statement The if statement allows you to check for a particular condition and perform a different action depending on whether that condition is true or not For example to set the Out channel to 3 if Pressure gt 5 we would do if Pressure 0 gt 5 Out 3 endif We use 0 after Pressure because Pressure is a channel with history and we only want to look at the most recent reading of Pressu We can also add an else statement to perform a different action if the condition is not true So if we want to set Out to 4 if Pressure isn t gt 5 we would do if Pressure 0 gt 5 Out 3 else Out 4 endif We can perform mor
63. e than one statement inside an if too if Pressure 0 gt 5 Out 3 Valve 1 endif We can also nest if statements if Pressure 0 gt 5 Out 3 if Temperature 0 lt 80 Valve 1 else Valve 0 endif else Out 4 endif 2011 AzeoTech Inc 6 Intro to scripting 43 This last example will set Out to 3 if Pressure gt 5 and to 4 if Pressure lt 5 If and only if Pressure gt 5 it will also set Valve to 1 if Temperature lt 80 and to 0 if Temperature gt 80 If Pressure lt 5 Valve will not be changed You have to admit its easier to understand in script than in the last 3 sentences but only because the script is properly indented 6 2 5 Loops and Delay Another common scripting element is the loop There are several ways to do a loop in DAQFactory but the most common is probably the while statement especially while 1 The while endwhile block will execute a group of statements as long as the while statement is true So while Pressure 0 gt 5 Pressure High delay 1 endwhile This loop will as long as Pressure gt 5 print out a statement every second Once Pressure goes lt 5 the code after the endwhile if any will execute The most common while loop is while 1 Since 1 is the same as true this loop will execute forever or at least until the sequence that contains it is stopped from outside Because it executes forever you should really only use
64. e used to do continuous logging They can be started and stopped but are not designed for conditional logging because of the way they collect their data Typically you will run a logging set in one of two modes All Data Points aligned this will log all data from any channel you assign to the logging set If your data is coming in with different time stamps it will try and align the data points to put them on the same line in the log based on the align parameter The default align parameter of 0 means that if two data points have a different time they will end up on a separate line in the log You can increase this and data will be combined on the same line if their times are closer than the align threshold in seconds The only problem is that if your data is coming in faster than the align threshold on a single channel some of that channel s data will not get logged Fixed Interval this will cause the logging set to go out every Interval in seconds and either average all the data accumulated on each channel and log the average or take a snapshot of whatever the most recent reading was This is useful if for example you want to simply log your data every minute even though some data points are coming in once a second others every 5 seconds etc You d select Fixed Interval then Snapshot and an Interval of 60 The File functions are more advanced and covered in the DAQFactory user s guide 5 1 Logging to ASCII files Next we will lea
65. eGet and others in script then an alert won t appears in the Command Alert window and OnAlert won t be called When working in script then you have two other choices The first is to simply look at the return value for each call to AddRequest GoOne GetResult etc If an error occurred in calling the function the error code is returned Since 0 is UE NOERROR which also means false in DAQFactory we can simply look for a non zero or true in DAQFactory value private err err AddRequest if err error occurred endif This method is OK for single functions like eGet and ePut but can get real cumbersome if you have a lot of function calls Fortunately you can use the GetNextError function instead This function allows you to cycle through any errors in a block of LabJack function calls A block is a group of AddRequest followed by a single GoOne and optionally any GetResult calls With each successive call to GetNextError the next error from the list of errors that occurred in the block is returned along with some details Once the function returns LJE NOERROR which is just 0 then we know that there are no more errors Here s an example AddRequest 0 LJ ioPUT CONFIG LJ chAIN RESOLUTION 14 0 0 AddRequest 0 LJ ioPUT AIN RANGE 2 LJ rgBIP5V 0 0 AddRequest 0 LJ ioPUT AIN RANGE 3 LJ rgBIP5V 0 0 GoOne 0 private err private ch private io while GetNextError 0 io ch err Form
66. each scan so we can use the system timer to apply a high precision time stamp as long as we include the timer in the stream This is described in the section on Triggered Streaming The other use is when you need a high precision time stamp on another timer or counter read Since all the timer and counter reads are done with a single call to the device there is no software latency if the desired timers and the timer setup as system timer are read at the same time This is as simple as making sure all your LJ_ioGET_TIMER_VALUE requests are together This can also be achieved if you are using Channels to retrieve your timer readings as long as your timers all have the same Timing and Offset Depending on how long your experiment runs you may be able to get away with only SYSTIMERLOW For the UE9 at 750khz the low timer will roll over every 5726 seconds while the U3 at 4MHz rolls over in 1073 seconds Here s the script to do both low and high system timers for longer experiments AddRequest ID LJ_ioPUT_CONFIG LJ_chNUMBER_TIMERS ENABLED 2 0 0 Configure Timer0 as timer low AddRequest ID LJ ioPUT TIMER MODE 0 LJ tmSYSTIMERLOW 0 0 Configure Timerl as timer high AddRequest ID LJ ioPUT TIMER MODE 1 LJ tmSYSTIMERHIGH 0 0 GoOne ID Of course you ll probably have more than 2 timers enabled or perhaps a counter or two If you actually need the high double word of the system timer you are going to end up with the time spread
67. ecifiers The second part of the FormatDateTime function takes the time you want to format In this case we use SysTime which is the current system time Sample file LJGuideSamples LogBatch ctl 5 3 Doing daily logs Another form of batch logging is daily logging This is when you create a new logging file every day or week hour or whatever interval This can easily be done with a simple sequence script Assuming we still have the MyLog logging set 1 Right click on SEQUENCES in the Workspace and select Add Sequence Call it DailyLog 2 Once the sequence editor appears check the box labeled AutoStart 3 Enter the following script while 1 logging log strFileName c daqfactory mydata_ formatdatetime Sym3d systime csv delay 1 endwhile 4 Click Apply then go to Debug Run this Sequence from the DAQFactory main menu to start the sequence All the sequence does is every second reset the file name The new file name has the date in it 86399 times out of 86400 it basically does nothing but at midnight it will actually change the file to a new name The logging set will see this and automatically close yesterday s file and start a new one with the new name Since the sequence is marked AutoStart when your document is loaded into DAQFactory the sequence will start automatically Sample file LIGuideSamples LogDaily cti 5 4 Conditional logging and the export set Logging sets work well with normal lo
68. ect status messages probably saying Sending 0 tags to server in the Command Alert window located at the bottom of the DAQFactory window Now that your DAQFactory document is connected to DAQConnect we can have our Pressure channel send its data to DAQConnect 6 Click on CHANNELS in the workspace find the Pressure channel and check the box under the column labeled DAQConn Click Apply Quick Note Special OPC DAQCOnn DC Hst DC Intel Moc The pressure channel will immediately start sending its data to your DAQConnect data source Now we can go to DAQConnect in a browser and view the data 7 Open up your favorite browser and browse to www daqconnect com then click on customer login or my account if you are already logged in Feel free to do this on a different computer Login using the account you created in step 2 above 2011 AzeoTech Inc 4 Display the data 29 Although you can use pretty much any browser we recommend Chrome because it has the fastest JavaScript implementation then Firefox and finally IE which unfortunately still falls way behind in its JavaScript performance 8 Once logged in you will be presented with the main DAQConnect editor and a blank page Click on the Basics menu at the top You then see your Tank data source listed with the Pressure channel or tag as its called in DAQConnect listed underneath To the right of Pressure are three icons Drag the first one
69. ect to an Ethernet LabJack requires an extra few simple steps as the D column of a DAQFactory channel only accepts numbers and not IP addresses 1 Click on Quick Device Configuration from the DAQFactory main menu A new window will popup Device Configuration x Please select a Device to configure Select LabJack LabJack_U12 Cancel View Raw 2 Select LabJack from the list of available devices A new window will appear LabJack Device Configuration x Dt Device Type Interface Address ID 3 Click on the Add button to add a new LabJack device Add new LabJack Device x Device Number fi Device Type UES w Cancel Interface Ethernet h Address ID FirstFound 192 168 1 105 4 In the new window select a unique device number to assign to this device 2011 AzeoTech Inc 2 Installing and Starting 13 This number should be unique among any other LabJack devices even USB ones as this is the number DAQFactory uses to identify the device 5 Select uE9 and Ethernet interface and put the IP address of your device in the Address space 6 Click OK The new device will be listed in the window Depending on your DAQFactory installation you may see a Configuration button We do not recommend using this button to configure your LabJack and it is considered depreciated Instead use the techniques described later in this guide 7 Click OK to close t
70. eneral Number Currency Type Accounting uc Date midjyyyy himm ss 000 Time h mm ss AM PM Percentage h mm h mm ss mjdfyyyy himm mmiss mm ss 0 Yi Delete Type the number format code using one of the existing codes as a starting point 2011 AzeoTech Inc 6 Intro to scripting 6 Intro to scripting 39 6 Intro to scripting 6 1 Creating sequences Much of what you can do in DAQFactory such as acquiring data logging it and displaying it on the screen can be done without writing any script However to enjoy the full flexibility of DAQFactory you will need to do at least a little basic scripting You may think scripting is bad but trust us its the best way to get a computer to do exactly what you want We could have made DAQFactory not have any scripting but then every properties window for every feature would have thousands of choices which would be much more cumbersome to use and you still wouldn t have the flexibility of scripting Fortunately you can step into it slowly using many of the built in features we ve shown so far but mixing in an occasional short script to do something unique We ve seen some scripting already when we talked about conditional logging This section will go over a few more of the basics of DAQFactory scripting so you ll understand the examples in the rest of this guide It is not designed to be a complete overview of Sequences For that you sh
71. ents for numeric display l l l l l retann raaaaaaannanaannnnnaasannnnanasannnnnnn 20 4 3 Conversions vs direct expreSSIonSs ieri 21 4 4 Descriptive text components for textual CiSplay ccsecceceeeeeeeeeeseeeeeensneeeeeenseeeeeeeeseeeeeenneeneeeenss 22 AS Grapning esse cece cee tia ni la oli alan o i iii lo 23 4 6 Outputting with variable value component rari 25 4 7 Toggling a digital output using a DUt O J K eee raaaae n kaka kak kk KAWAR AA WEKA WA WA KAR AA WERA 26 4 8 Viewing Data on the V D i llakkkkkkkakkk kaka ak kak kak AA WARA KAW WAAR WA WERA KA WAA AR AA WE AA WA WERA RAA WERA 27 5 Logging 31 5 1 Logging to ASCI leese viens ik n oi n dan ei ewo K N EN u R ki k even n kat n ak n eV k SEBA v kaa y e kO RU ap Su REV RE Ku Ca 31 32 Batch OGG D WE 32 5 3 DOING daily JOQ0 8 2 ces dela e kek entere I EE 35 5 4 Conditional logging and the export SEt rrriii in 35 5 5 Loading logged data into EXCell cccccessenceceseeeseeeeseeeseeeseeeseenseeeseeenseeeeeensneaeeeeeseeeeeeeaseeeeeenseceeeeenss 37 6 Intro to scripting 39 6 1 Creating S qUE C S vare ora cece et tn an ane nek c kak k iii 39 2011 AzeoTech Inc 4 DAQFactory LabJack Application Guide LE lo ge EE A0 Ee LTE A0 6 2 2 Variabl s lee 41 6 2 3 Calling fUNCtiONS rarna
72. ert window to watch it change As you may have noticed there is also a button labeled Digital Out which does almost the exact same thing as the Digital In button except that it makes the descriptive text component into a clickable component that will toggle the output between 0 and 1 It does this by changing the component s Action You can see this by clicking on the Action tab of the components properties Feel free to create a new Descriptive Text component then go into the component s properties click Digital Out enter Output then on closing simply click on the component to toggle Output instead of going to the command alert window Sample file LJGuideSamples DescriptiveText ctl 4 5 Graphing Displaying scalar values in text form is certainly useful but nothing is better than a graph to give you a handle on what is happening with your system DAQFactory offers many advanced graphing capabilities to help you better understand your system In this section we will make a simple Y vs time or trend graph 1 If you are still displaying the page with the value on it hit the 1 key to switch to Page_1 If you are in a different view click on Page_1 in the workspace The workspace is only one way to switch among pages Another is using speed keys which can be assigned to a page by right clicking on the page name in the workspace and selecting Page Properties 2 Right click somewhere on the blank page and select Graphs 2D Graph Move
73. ew your data from a web browser you might consider the DAQConnect service described in section 7 5 To demonstrate FTP we ll use the email attachment example we did at the end of the last section and change it to do FTP instead including all the initialization code too ftp strServer ftp myServer com ftp strUserName ftpUser ftp strPassword password logging mylog strFileName c mydata_ formatdatetime Sy m d systime csv private string lastdate formatdatetime d systime while 1 if formatdatetime d systime lastdate save the attachment file BEFORE we change the logging set name ftp strLocalFile logging mylog strFileName ftp strRemoteFile logging mylog strFileName you may need to change this if your server doesn t like logging mylog strFileName c mydata_ formatdatetime y m d systime csv give the logging set time to close yesterday s file before we send the email delay 10 ftp Upload endif delay 1 endwhile 7 4 Performing a ramped output We ve talked a little about setting an output from a screen control in section 4 6 but this requires user input We also talked about setting an output based on an input in section 7 1 In this section we learned that you can easily set an output channel by simply assigning a value to it So to set a DAC channel named ValvePosition to 3 volts assuming no Conversion exists on the channel we would simply do ValvePo
74. ey is pressed you can click on components to select them click and drag to move them around and click and drag their corners to resize for resizable components If you don t like this you can put the system into edit mode by selecting Edit Edit Mode from the DAQFactory main menu This will reverse the functionality of the control key when working with components except keyboard nudging You can simply click and drag components but if you want to click on a button to do an action you will have to hold the Ctrl key down We strongly recommend against using Edit Mode except for when you have a lot of repetitive edits to make on a large number of components For those that skim and didn t read the previous paragraphs In order to manipulate screen components you must hold down the Ctrl key 4 2 Variable value components for numeric display The Channel View certainly provides a quick look at your data but is not the most convenient or flexible way to display your data especially once you have more than one channel In this section we ll add a component to a page that will display data from the Pressure channel This assumes of course that you created an analog Pressure channel in the basic I O chapter If you didn t load the document LJGuideSamples InputsSimpleWithDA ct and start from there 1 Click on Page 0 in the Workspace under PAGES This will display a blank white page unless you are working off InputsSimpleWithDA When DAQFa
75. fi pixels Add Delete Lenath r_ 1x4k h Line Thickness fo pixels 4 Leave all the rest in their default settings and click OK You should now see the graph moving The data will move from right to left as more data is acquired for the pressure channel However we currently are multiplying our Pressure channel reading by 100 using the Conversion we created a few sections ago so the trace is completely off scale and not visible To display the data we need to change the Y axis scaling 5 Double click on the left axis of the graph Unlike other components you can double click on different areas of the graph to open the properties window for the graph to different pages Double clicking on the left axis brings up the axis page with the left axis selected You can also just open the properties window for the graph and select the Axes tab then Left Axis 1 6 Next to Scale From enter 0 next to Scale To enter 100 then click OK This will scale the graph from 0 to 100 Depending on what you have plugged into your LabJack input or what voltage the LabJack is floating at this may or may not be a big enough scale You can always click on Page_0 in the workspace to see what the current Pressure reading is and change the scaling of the graph appropriately 2D Graph Component x x Traces Axes General Colors Fonts Axis Bound Annotations Line Annotations Scaling New Name Let Axis 1 Scale Fr
76. gging and batch logging since they typically run for longer periods of time If however you need to log only when certain criteria are met then you will need to use an Export Set instead Continuing our examples let us have the system log our channels whenever the Pressure goes above 90 1 Right click on EXPORT in the Workspace and select Add Export Set Call it OneLine 2 When the export set area appears enter a File Name such as C daqfactory mydata csv 3 Click on the Fill w Chans button This button automatically fills the export set columns with each of your channels setup to log the most recent reading only notice the 0 after each expression in the table This is the typical setup for conditional logging Unlike logging sets export sets can also log calculations and anything else you can describe in a DAQFactory Expression 2011 AzeoTech Inc 36 DAQFactory LabJack Application Guide Export Set OneLine Main Details Export Method ASCII Delimited hes File Name Je mpdata csv Browse Table Name Name Expression Figs a MyDigln MyDigln 0 6 Output Output 0 6 Fill w Chans Pressure Pressure 0 6 Add 4 Click on the Details tab 5 Select Fixed Interval and then to the right under the Fixed Interval block select Snapshot Fixed interval mode with Snapshot causes the export set to take a single snapshot of the current data irrespective of the time the da
77. his window At this point the LabJack with the given IP address has now been assigned a device number that you can use everywhere you d use the LabJack ID in DAQFactory We have mapped the IP address to a device number Do not use the LabJack s ID but the device number instead 2011 AzeoTech Inc 3 Basic I O read write analog digital 3 Basic I O read write analog digital 15 3 Basic I O read write analog digital 3 1 Reading inputs Performing basic analog and digital input and output with DAQFactory and a LabJack is quite simple This is done by creating a channel for each desired I O point Analog Input To create an analog input channel 1 Click on the word CHANNELS in the Workspace under Local This will bring up the channel table Unless otherwise specified when we say click on CHANNELS we mean the one under Local and not under V 2 Click on Add to add a new row to the table 3 In the Channel Name column put a name say Pressure The channel name can be anything you d like as long as it starts with a letter and contains only letters numbers and the underscore 4 In the Device Type column select LabJack All your LabJack channels will use this Device Make sure not to select LabJack_U12 as this is for the U12 only 5 In the D column enter the ID of your LabJack If you don t know the ID of your LabJack please read the section on setting up your device in the last chapter If you only
78. hould be noted that while C is a case sensitive language DAQFactory is not so 1j_ioadd stream channel will work just as well That said it will probably make your code more readable if you keep the case used in the constants 8 2 Doing configuration steps As we showed in the chapter Basic I O there is a lot you can do with DAQFactory and your LabJack without having to do any scripting More than likely you will move into a little scripting when you want to tweak the configuration of your LabJack This is often done in a sequence marked Auto Start so the configuration is done automatically when your DAQFactory document loads The format of these configuration commands are almost identical to the code shown in the LabJack User s Manual as long as you use the using and include functions we described in the last section So if we wanted to configure the UE9 analog inputs for 14 bit and channels 2 and 3 to bipolar 5V range 1 Right click on SEQUENCES in the Workspace and select Add Sequence Give it the name StartUp 2 The sequence editor window will appear Check the AutoStart at the top and then in the window type in the following script using device labjack include c program files labjack drivers labjackud h AddRequest 0 LJ_ioPIN_CONFIGURATION_RESET 0 0 0 AddRequest 0 LJ ioPUT CONFIG LJ chAIN RESOLUTION 14 0 0 AddRequest 0 LJ ioPUT AIN RANGE 2 LJ rgBIP5V 0 0 AddRequest 0 LJ ioPUT AIN RANGE 3 LJ rgBIP5
79. imer as quadrature channel B Reading either timer returns the same signed 32 bit count and writing a zero to either timer resets both Here s some DAQFactory script to initialize the quadrature mode on timers 0 and 1 AddRequest ID LJ_ioPUT_CONFIG LJ_chNUMBER_TIMERS ENABLED 2 0 0 Configure Timer0 as quadrature AddRequest ID LJ ioPUT TIMER MODE 0 LJ tmQUAD 0 0 Configure Timerl as quadrature AddRequest ID LJ ioPUT TIMER MODE 1 LJ tmQUAD 0 0 GoOne ID As you can see its one of the easier timers to setup since it doesn t require the internal clock The easiest way to 2011 AzeoTech Inc 76 DAQFactory LabJack Application Guide read the timer is to create a Timer channel I O Type is Timer Channel is the timer in this case 0 Timing can be whatever update interval you would like Alternatively you can use L ioGET TIMER to retrieve the reading from script private datain eGet ID LJ_ioGET_TIMER 0 datain 0 10 5 8 Timer stop Timer stop allows you to stop a particular even numbered timer after a certain number of pulses is received on the odd numbered timer stop timer pin This is especially useful when used with frequency or PWM out to drive a stepper motor a certain number of pulses For example to generate exactly 1000 pulses on Timer 0 we d setup timer 0 as frequency out and timer 1 in timer stop mode and tie the two output pins together You ll recognize the first
80. in the later part of the manual that describes how to perform more specific tasks with your LabJack device Most of the sections include a sample document that you can load directly into DAQFactory These applications are included in the LIGuideSamples directory of your DAQFactory installation The exact file name is specified on each page 1 3 DAQFactory Versions cer a e e e EE REES EE ER TT TT te ene EA ss e a 2011 AzeoTech Inc 8 DAQFactory LabJack Application Guide e Mi Zi a e HERE e 2011 AzeoTech Inc 2 Installing and Starting 10 DAQFactory LabJack Application Guide 2 Installing and Starting 2 1 Installation The first step to using your LabJack device is to insert the CD that came with your LabJack and install the included software The LabJack software must be installed on any machine that uses the LabJack device and should be installed before you plug the device into the USB port DAQFactory is a separate installers that should be automatically run once the LabJack drivers are installed DAQFactory installers do not include the low level LabJack drivers so you must install the drivers that come from LabJack to use their devices This is required even if you are going to connect over Ethernet to an Ethernet compatible LabJack device such as the UE9 unless you plan on using Modbus If you are going to use Modbus please refer to the Modbus Guided Tour
81. ishome com email strSubject ALARM email strBody message email Send Now that you have that function you can call it from elsewhere in DAQFactory For example lets say we want to send an email whenever our Pressure channel goes above 80 from our earlier examples 6 Click on Pressure in the workspace under CHANNELS this assumes you still have the Pressure channel from a few chapters ago 7 Select the Event tab and enter this script if Pressure 0 gt 80 amp amp Pressure 1 lt 80 SendEmail Pressure is greater than 80 Its going to blow endif 8 Click Apply Now if the pressure goes above 80 an email will be sent Now you may be wondering about the if statement we used If we had done if Pressure 0 gt 80 instead then DAQFactory would fire off an email for every reading of pressure that is over 80 Instead we are only sending an email as the pressure goes over 80 Pressure 0 is the most recent reading and Pressure 1 is the next most recent reading amp amp means AND so only if the most recent reading is gt 80 AND the next most recent reading is lt 80 will an email be generated Note email takes a finite amount of time and is done asynchronously meaning when you do email send to send the email the email is sent in the background and the function returns immediately Because of this you should be careful not to consecutively call email send too quickly Although it de
82. ision 3 decimal places Font Arial v r Quick ize 1 A Font Size 6 points Analog Out Speed Key Average OK Cancel 6 Click OK Now the screen should display Pressure 0 42 V with a changing number This is the current value in the pressure channel we created earlier Feel free to open the properties window again and play with the units font and other settings When you are done load the sample file listed below as we ll build on it in the next section Sample file LJGuideSamples VariableValue ctl 4 3 Conversions vs direct expressions In the previous section we displayed the voltage reading from our analog input channel However in most cases you really want to view your data in more appropriate units than volts With pressure for example you might want PSI or millibar There are two ways you can convert your data into different units The first way is to simply put the desired formula in the Expression area of the component properties So if you had a 0 5V pressure sensor with a range of 0 500 psi you would put Pressure 0 100 to convert your voltage signal to PSI You would also of course probably want to change the unit display You can put much more complicated calculations as well even ones based on multiple channels DAQFactory supports a wide variety of operators and mathematical functions to make this easy They are all listed in the Expressions chapter of the DAQFactory help
83. ll your scripts Note variable declarations are not shown in the above examples but would be required Likewise error would need to be replaced with script to actually do something in the case of an error 9 1 5 Controlling outputs We ve talked a little about setting an output from a screen control in section 4 6 but this requires user input We also talked about setting an output based on an input in section 7 1 In this section we saw that you can easily set an output channel by simply assigning a value to it So to set a DAC channel named ValvePosition to 3 volts assuming no Conversion exists on the channel we would simply do ValvePosition 3 You can also apply conversions to outputs like we did with inputs in section 4 3 however the conversions work in reverse For inputs the conversion takes the raw voltage counts or other units from the LabJack and converts it into engineering units like temperature or pressure For outputs the conversion takes the engineering units and converts into voltage So for if we had a proportional valve that takes a 0 to 5V signal and we want to be able to specify the percentage open where 0 OV and 100 5V the conversion would be Value 20 Then to open the valve to 60 we could just do ValvePosition 60 and 3 volts would be outputted from the DAC of the LabJack Now as a further example lets say we d like to ramp the valve position from 0 to 100 over 60 seconds in steps
84. m files labjack drivers labjackud h AddRequest 0 LJ ioPUT CONFIG LJ chAIN RESOLUTION 18 0 0 AddRequest 0 LJ ioPUT AIN RANGE 0 LJ_rgUNI5V 0 0 GoOne 0 The first line is used to adjust for any voltage offset in the signal The second to adjust for the gain of the amplifier The next two optional UE9 lines are the standard lines required to access the LabJack UD from script The next three lines set the gain and resolution of the UE9 We ve chosen the most generic range for AINO Your UE9 might be able to use a tighter AIN range and achieve higher precision 3 Click Apply then go to Debug Run this Sequence from the DAQFactory menu to actually set these settings 4 Create a channel for AINO as described back in 3 1 to read the voltage 5 To accurately read the thermocouple we also need to read the temperature of the cold junction which is essentially the temperature of the LabJack This is internal A to D channel 133 for the UE9 and 30 for the U3 Create another channel called CJC to read A to D channel 133 if using a UE9 or 30 for a U3 Click Apply to save your changes and start reading the inputs Now we can convert the thermocouple voltage input into temperature 6 Click on CONVERSIONS in the workspace then Add Call the conversion Thermocouple and put the following Formula TypeK Value Offset gain CJC 0 273 15 There are different formulas for each thermocouple type such as TypeJ 7 Go back to the
85. m is installed with the LabJack driver but there a few more steps to perform before starting DAQFactory A control Panel 2 09 i lr x Eile Options Help Devices Serial Number 320012966 UES U3 320012966 Not Found Local ID ko Firmware Version 1 440 Bootloader Version 0 110 Hardware Version 1 210 Find Devices F3 Exit F4 Fee Conia Dela Found 1 USB UDP specified 2011 AzeoTech Inc 2 Installing and Starting 11 3 Click on Find Devices This will search and hopefully find your new device If your device is not found you should refer to the LabJack User s Guide for more assistance 4 Once found click on the device This will display current information about the device and an option to run a test panel You may want to click on the test panel just to see that you are receiving signals 5 Set the ID you should set the ID of your device to a non zero value If you are using multiple LabJacks the ID will need to be unique Zero is used by DAQFactory to indicate First Found and so cannot be used as LabJack ID If you are using Ethernet the ID is not required but we still recommend using unique non zero ID s just in case you plug it in to the USB port 6 Save your settings and close the application 2 3 Starting DAQFactory Now you can start DAQFactory and start taking some data From your Start menu select Programs gt DAQFac
86. manually type in commands More importantly for the new user this area displays any error messages that DAQFactory or your LabJack device might generate Unlike most applications 2011 AzeoTech Inc 12 DAQFactory LabJack Application Guide DAQFactory does not popup error message windows This is because there are many situations where you may get a large number of continuous errors For example if you accidentally unplug your device while taking data Instead of generating a huge number of windows with repetitive messages that you have to dismiss DAQFactory puts all the messages into the Command Alert window This works well but can sometimes be confusing as the error message will remain in the Command Alert window until it gets scrolled off the screen To ensure that you don t confuse an old error message for a new one you can right click on the command alert window and clear the display If for some reason you can t see any of these windows go to the View menu and select the desired window Note we strongly recommend keeping the Command Alert window visible when you are starting even though it takes up screen space If you hide it you may miss important alerts The window will flash when an alert occurs but this is not as apparent as a real message 2 4 Ethernet setup The LabJack UE9 offers both USB and Ethernet connectivity So far we have discussed communicating with LabJacks over USB To conn
87. mputer hard drive speed we suggest ASCII 4 Next to File Name enter c daqfactory mylogfile csv It is usually best to fully specify the path to your file otherwise the data will be stored in your DAQFactory directory The csv is a windows standard designation for comma delimited values which unless you change the delimiter on the details page is the type of file that will be created 5 In the Channels Available table click on the row with Pressure then click on the gt gt button to move it to the Channels to Log table Each logging set can log any combination of channels In this case we will just log the input channel 2011 AzeoTech Inc 32 DAQFactory LabJack Application Guide Logging Set MyLog Auto Start IT Apply Discard L Main Details Logging Method ASCII Delimited hd File Name c mploafile csv Browse Table Name Channels Available a Channels to Log MyDigln Pressure Output Fe Manual zl 6 Click on Apply to save the changes 7 To start logging click on the next to LOGGING to display the new logging set then right click on the logging set MyLog and select Begin Logging Set Once started the icon next to MyLog will change and the red stop sign will be removed to indicate that this logging set is running 8 Wait at least 10 or 15 seconds to log some data and then right click on the logging set again and select End Logging
88. multicore or multiprocessor computer you can take advantage of DAQFactory s design and the multiple cores to achieve faster software polled rates than would be possible with a single core The trick to this is making sure that all your fast processes i e anything faster than 50hz or so is done in a single thread What s a thread You ve seen Windows do multiprocessing before when you are downloading a big file off the internet and you switch to another program to check your email at the same time A thread is just like different programs that can run simultaneously but that exist inside of a single program like DAQFactory DAQFactory is made up of a lot of different threads and so can perform multiple tasks simultaneously Likewise it can split these threads across multiple cores or processors for maximum efficiency There are basically two ways you can keep things on a single thread in DAQFactory The first is to put all the tasks in a single sequence Each sequence is run in its own thread unless of course it is called as a function from another sequence This is why you can create multiple sequences to perform different tasks and run them all simultaneously The other way is to create Channels and give all the desired high speed channels the same Timing and Offset values If Channels have different Timing or Offset then they are put on a different thread If you have multiple processors or cores and want to see this in action just create a few
89. n array just like you ve been passing references to variables using the sign Just make sure you have preinitialized the array to the correct amount So using the example in the LabJack User s Guide for Raw In and Out the DAQFactory script would look like this assuming first found and that you ve done the using and include somewhere else private writeArray 0x70 0x70 private readArray 0x00 0x00 private NumBytesToWrite 2 private NumBytesToRead 2 eGet 0 LJ_ioRAW_OUT 0 NumBytesToWrite writeArray eGet 0 LJ ioRAW IN 0 NumBytesToRead readArray Internally DAQFactory will convert the array of double precision values which is the only numeric data type supported in DAQFactory to an array of bytes This means that each element in the array should be between 0 and 255 The array also must be 1 dimensional Most importantly the array MUST be preinitialized to the proper length The driver does not look at the previous parameter to make sure you have the correct array size any more than the C version would do If you do not preinitialize you are likely to crash DAQFactory Worse it may work sometimes but crash others so be careful with this one 2011 AzeoTech Inc 80 DAQFactory LabJack Application Guide 11 3 SPI communications The LabJack devices support doing serial communications using their digital lines using the standard SPI synchronous format This is a powerful but adv
90. nel Name Device Type y DE 1 0 Type Chn H Timing Ofiset Conversion gt Pressure Lablack DA to D O 1 00 0 00 VolisToPSI Output LabJack OD to A 0 000 O 00None A MyDigln LabJack Dig ln 1 100 0 00 None 8 Click Apply to save your changes If you then go back to Page_0 you will see that your values are now 100 times their previous size Note just to reinforce this Value is a keyword and not the name of a channel or variable When you apply the conversion to the channel that channel s current reading is substituted where Value is found in the conversion Sample file LJGuideSamples Conversions ctl 4 4 Descriptive text components for textual display The variable value component is great for analog data but less so for digital data where the only values are 0 and 1 For this the Descriptive Text Component is useful to allow you to display a word or message for 0 and 1 instead To show this let s use the Output D to A channel we created in the last chapter and pretend it is a digital input channel 1 On a page right click and select Displays Descriptive Text 2 Once the new component is on the screen right click on it and select Properties 3 For the Expression type Output 0 4 By default the component already will display the word Text Double click on the word yellow highlighted word Text in the table at the bottom left of the properties to select it and replace it with the word Off This will c
91. no reason why you couldn t use variables that could then be changed from elsewhere err eGet ID LJ_ioGET_AIN chan val 0 Another thing the first example shows is the AddValue function of the channel MyChannel This function essentially stuffs a value into a channel This allows you to utilize the benefits of a channel history easy logging etc without actually using the channel Timing to trigger the reads In this case we are putting the result of the eGet call into MyChannel MyChannel does not have to have the same channel number I O type or even be Device Type LabJack Note if using the U3 you will need to configure the pins as analog inputs With Channels this is done automatically for you but when scripting you have to do it yourself It only takes one line to enable a channel ePut ID LJ ioPUT ANALOG ENABLE BIT 1 1 0 Sample file LIGuideSamples eGet cti 9 1 4 More advanced using Add Go Get eGet can be handy for very simple scripts but when doing a number of different requests it is much better to use the AddRequest GoOne GetResult functions So ifwe wanted to read channels 1 through 3 we could do eGet 0 LJ ioGET AIN 1 vall 0 eGet 0 LJ ioGET AIN 2 val2 0 eGet 0 LJ ioGET AIN 3 val3 0 or we could do AddRequest 0 LJ ioGET AIN 1 0 0 0 AddRequest 0 LJ ioGET AIN 2 0 0 0 AddRequest 0 LJ_ioGET_AIN 3 0 0 0 GoOne 0 GetResult 0 LJ ioGET AIN 1
92. ns To do this you need to setup a timer for system timer in and then add the timer to the list of channels to stream Depending on how long your experiment runs you may be able to get away with only SYSTIMERLOW For the UE9 at 750khz the low timer will roll over every 5726 seconds Here s how to do it 1 Enable two Timers AddRequest ID LJ_ioPUT_CONFIG LJ_chNUMBER_TIMERS ENABLED 2 0 0 2 Set the mode AddRequest ID LJ ioPUT TIMER MODE 0 LJ tmSYSTIMERLOW 0 0 AddRequest ID LJ ioPUT TIMER MODE 1 LJ tmSYSTIMERHIGH 0 0 GoOne ID 2011 AzeoTech Inc 9 Analog and Digital I O 63 3 Set up the stream to stream analog input 2 and 3 in external trigger mode AddRequest ID LJ ioPUT CONFIG LJ chSTREAM EXTERNAL TRIGGER 1 0 0 setup channels to stream AddRequest ID LJ ioCLEAR STREAM CHANNELS 0 0 0 AddRequest ID LJ ioADD STREAM CHANNEL 3 0 0 0 AddRequest ID LIJ ioADD STREAM CHANNEL 4 0 0 0 0 4 Now we need to add our timers to the list of channels to stream Make sure you use the order indicated AddRequest ID IJ ioADD STREAM CHANNEL 200 0 0 0 AddRequest ID IJ ioADD STREAM CHANNEL 224 0 0 0 AddRequest ID LIJ ioADD STREAM CHANNEL 201 0 0 0 AddRequest ID LIJ ioADD STREAM CHANNEL 225 0 0 0 5 Now finish up the stream setup GoOne ID start the stream global scanrate 0 eGet ID LJ ioSTART STREAM 0 scanrate 0 s
93. o do this we ll create a free DAQConnect account setup our Pressure channel to send its measurements to DAQConnect and create some screens in a browser DAQConnect allows you to view data live from a web browser and optionally do remote control without having to worry about firewall or router settings static IPs or any other IT issues You also do not need to have your own website just a DAQConnect account You can create screens in DAQConnect directly in your browser using drag and drop controls and can view these screens from anywhere even your iPhone iPad or other mobile device 1 Click on Real time Web gt Connect from the main menu This will popup a window that allows you to create a DAQConnect account and create or select a DAQConnect data source to send your data to A data source is a collection of channels typically from one location within your DAQConnect account You can have multiple data sources within your account if you have multiple locations or you otherwise want to separate your data into groups DAG Connect Connect to DAQConnect Welcome to DAQConnect 9 Intro Login Create Account Create link Done This application supports real time web access using DAQConnect With DAQConnect you will be able to view your data and optionally control outputs from the Internet without having to make any firewall changes get a static IP or otherwise expose your network to Internet security risks You can create
94. oADD_STREAM CHANNEL 200 0 0 0 AddRequest 0 LJ_ioADD_STREAM CHANNEL 224 0 0 0 AddRequest 0 LJ_ioADD_STREAM CHANNEL 201 0 0 0 AddRequest 0 LJ_ioADD_STREAM CHANNEL 225 0 0 0 9 2 4 Triggered Triggered streaming is currently only supported by the UE9 and UE9 Pro Triggered streaming is similar to regular streaming except instead of using the internal LabJack clock to determine when a scan of the stream channels occurs an external pulse triggers the scan The interval between external pulses must be less than the maximum stream rate for the current input resolution The external pulses do not need to occur at a constant interval To enable external triggering just add the following line of script before adding your stream channels using LJ_ioADD_STREAM_CHANNEL AddRequest ID LIJ ioPUT CONFIG IJ chSTREAM EXTERNAL TRIGGER 1 0 0 The trigger input will be the first available FIO pin based on which timers and counters you have enabled The only problem with triggered streaming is that the time of each data point will be off This is because the LabJack buffers the scans and DAQFactory doesn t actually get the data until a full packet occurs DAQFactory doesn t realize this and assigns times based on an assumed interval If you have the bandwidth i e your pulses are slow enough that you aren t close to the stream interval limit you can use the system timer mode of the timers to retrieve exact relative times of your sca
95. of 1 The script is quite simple initialize valve position to 0 ValvePosition 0 while ValvePosition lt 100 ValvePosition ValvePosition 1 delay 0 6 endwhile Doing a ramp and soak is not much harder just split out the while loops Lets say we want to ramp to 40 in 20 seconds soak for 10 seconds ramp to 80 in 40 seconds soak for 5 seconds then ramp back down to 0 in 60 seconds initialize valve position to 0 ValvePosition 0 ramp to 40 while ValvePosition lt 40 ValvePosition ValvePosition 1 delay 0 5 endwhile delay 10 soak ramp to 80 ValvePosition 40 this is to make the graph look good 2011 AzeoTech Inc 60 DAQFactory LabJack Application Guide while ValvePosition lt 80 ValvePosition this is the same as VP VP 1 delay 1 endwhile delay 5 soak again ValvePosition 80 ramp down to 0 while ValvePosition gt 0 ValvePosition delay 0 75 endwhile One important note these sequences won t work if you try and ramp past the highest value of the output If you try and set an output to an invalid value you will get an Alert and the channel WILL NOT update so the while will never exit because ValvePosition would never reach the desired point Sample file LJGuideSamples RampSample ctl 9 2 High speed acquisition streaming 9 2 1 Introduction When you want to do things faster than 100hz its usually best to let the L
96. of 5 will result in FIO5 being the first timer FIOO through FIO3 will no longer be usable as timers or counters Counters To use counters all you really need to do is enable the counter This is done with LJ_ioPUT_COUNTER_ENABLE AddRequest ID LJ_ioPUT_COUNTER_ENABLE 0 1 0 0 This will enable the first counter To disable do the same thing but change the 1 to a 0 The general form of this command is Labjack ID LJ_ioPUT_COUNTER_ENABLE Counter Enable 1 or Disable 0 0 0 Once the counter is enabled you can read the counter using a channel putting the ID in for the D select an I O type of Counter and putting the counter number for the channel number If you are looking for the number of counts in a certain time period please make sure and read the next section on resetting the counter Sample file LJGuideSamples BasicCounter ctl 2011 AzeoTech Inc 70 DAQFactory LabJack Application Guide Timers Timers are slightly more complicated mainly because they are a lot more flexible There are a number of different timer modes and each has its own parameters and setup which is described in the following sections A few common points though Like counters you ll need to first enable the timers The function to do so is very similar to counters except you are specifying how many timers to enable rather than enabling a specific timer So to enable two timers AddRequest ID LJ ioPUT
97. om fo Axis Label to 100 Plotting Method Line hd Copy Scale From Zoom Bight Axis O Axis Color pe I Time Width l Autoscale From a Style C Lin Log Date Time p Grid Auto Grid Control Vv Row 1 Major Tick Spacing fi Z of Full Axis 100 Minor Tick Spacing fi Full Length Minor Ticks J Align Thresh 05 Area Graphs Negative from X Axis E Now we ll try another method to scale the graph 7 Open the graph properties box again and go to the Traces page Change the Y Expression to Pressure 100 and hit OK Like the other screen components the expressions in graphs can be calculations as well as simple channels In this case we are dividing each of the values of Pressure s history by 100 and plotting them This is essentially 2011 AzeoTech Inc 4 Display the data 25 removing the conversion we applied to Pressure in the previous section since it multiplied our reading by 100 8 Deselect the graph by clicking on the page outside of the graph The shaded rectangle around the graph should disappear Next right click on the graph and select AutoScale Y Axis The graph component has two different right click popup menus When selected the graph displays the same popup menu as the rest of the components When it is unselected it displays a completely different popup for manipulating the special features of the graph After autoscaling you should
98. onto the big white area the page outside the menu to view the current Pressure reading as a number Basics v Visuals Edit gt Data gt Alarms Ut Add Data Source Claim a device Data Source Tank Pressure Ski Alerts and Messages Current Time 09 13 11 22 26 25 200 a AutoGenID 1 Ay Zi 9 Try dragging the other two icons to the page to view a gauge and a trend graph of your data There are a number of other controls available in the Visuals menu See the DAQConnect help for more information 10 Click on Save at the top right corner to save your new DAQConnect page Now you can login from anywhere to view real time values There are ways to create restricted read only members with separate login for the same account as well as the ability to embed your dynamic DAQConnect pages inside other web pages Please refer to the DAQConnect help for more information That is the very basics of DAQConnect Feel free to explore more with your free account and refer to the DAQConnect help for more details There is also more detail on using DAQFactory with DAQConnect and control capability in the DAQFactory help 2011 AzeoTech Inc 5 Logging 5 Logging 31 5 Logging DAQFactory offers a number of different logging options There are logging sets export sets and for those that need total flexibility the File series of functions for direct file access Logging sets ar
99. ormat function You may want to perform something more sophisticated when an error occurs If you want to the same error handling for all your script you can put the error handling code in a separate function To do so create a new sequence and put the error handling code there private err private ch private io while GetNextError 0 io ch err Format Error occurred on channel type d io type d code d ch io err endwhile Then when you want to check for errors simply call the sequence as a function For example if we called our new sequence ErrorHandler our original script would become AddRequest 0 LJ_ioPUT_CONFIG LJ chAIN RESOLUTION 14 0 0 AddRequest 0 LJ ioPUT AIN RANGE 2 LJ rgBIP5V 0 0 AddRequest 0 LJ ioPUT AIN RANGE 3 LJ rgBIP5V 0 0 GoOne 0 ErrorHandler Note A single call to eGet or ePut or any of the other e functions is a block so you should stick with looking at the return value of these functions to determine if an error occurred This type of error handling is demonstrated in the example files for all the LabJack specific examples in the following sections 2011 AzeoTech Inc 9 Analog and Digital I O 9 Analog and Digital I O 57 9 Analog and Digital I O 9 1 Low speed acquisition lt 100hz 9 1 1 Introduction Because Windows needs to occasionally use the CPU in your computer to redraw the screen process the mouse and pe
100. ould read the DAQFactory User s Guide chapter on Sequences Script is used in a number of different places In the conditional logging section we used script in Channel Events In the batch logging section we had script in the Action for a screen component The primary place for script however is in a sequence A sequence is script that either executes standalone in the background or as a function to another piece of script Because sequences can run in the background while the rest of DAQFactory does its thing you can create a separate sequence for each different function of your application and have them all run at the same time For example if you want a loop that switches a valve every 30 seconds and another loop that sends an email every day you would create two separate sequences and run them both at the same time Creating a new sequence is as simple as creating a new logging set Right click on SEQUENCES in the Workspace and select Add Sequence Enter a name for your sequence Like every other name in DAQFactory your sequence name must start with a letter and contain only letters numbers and the underscore Click OK and the new sequence is created and the sequence editor window displayed The sequence editor window is a simple text editor with some special features like auto indenting that make it easier to write script Before we jump into some of the script basics a few important pointers Our apologizes if we sound like we are pre
101. part from the frequency out section Set the timer counter pin offset to 4 which will put the first timer counter on FIO4 AddRequest ID LJ ioPUT CONFIG LJ chTIMER COUNTER PIN OFFSET 4 0 0 use system clock so works on U3 and UE9 AddRequest ID LJ ioPUT CONFIG LJ chTIMER CLOCK BASE LJ tcSYS 0 0 Set the divisor to 48 AddRequest ID LJ ioPUT CONFIG LJ chTIMER CLOCK DIVISOR 48 0 0 Enable 1 timer It will use FIOA AddRequest ID LJ ioPUT CONFIG LJ chNUMBER TIMERS ENABLED 2 0 0 Configure Timer0 as Frequency out AddRequest ID LJ ioPUT TIMER MODE 0 LJ tmFREQOUT 0 0 Set the second divisor to 10 AddRequest ID LJ ioPUT TIMER VALUE 0 10 0 0 now timer stop AddRequest ID LJ ioPUT TIMER MODE 1 LJ tmTIMERSTOP 0 0 set number of pulses AddRequest ID LJ ioPUT TIMER VALUE 1 1000 0 0 Execute the requests GoOne 0 Once the 1000 pulse are complete Timer 0 will stop To restart it you ll need to reconfigure the timers by simply rerunning the above script Add a digital line to control the direction and you have a very easy stepper controller But if you want it even easier you can use a Channel event to allow a channel to trigger the pulses To do this 1 Create a sequence called PulseOut with the above script replacing the 1000 in the last AddRequest with NumPulses 0 AddRequest ID LJ ioPUT TIMER MODE 1 LJ tmTIMERSTOP 0 0 set number of pulse
102. pecify different objects that don t require the object designation Technically speaking this is bringing the function into the global namespace but you don t have to worry about that Just know that once you do the command in a document using device labjack You don t have to put device labjack in front of the LabJack functions This resets when you load a new document so you ll need to put this function call in an AutoStart sequence for each of your documents include c Nprogram files labjack drivers labjackud h The LabJack Universal Driver uses a large number of constants to allow you access to the rather large number of features in these devices To get access to these constants we could hard code them into DAQFactory but the folks at LabJack are constantly improving their devices and adding more features With more features comes more constants and we simply can t keep up So with this include call you are loading all the constants from the LabJack supplied file That way you always get the latest LabJack capabilities without having to upgrade DAQFactory This function works just like a C include except that it only pulls out numeric constants Once the command has run you can go to the Command Alert window and in the bottom command area type LJ_ioADD_STREAM_ CHANNEL 2011 AzeoTech Inc 8 Calling the LabJackUD 51 hit Enter and it will display 200 the value of this constant It s
103. pends on your server at least 5 seconds between sends is recommended Attaching files 2011 AzeoTech Inc 7 Some Common Tasks 47 DAQFactory email also supports attaching of files This is great if you want to be able to send the daily logs every night We talked about how to create daily files in the Logging chapter To attach the daily log to an email requires us to expand the script we made to change the logging file Here s the modified script with the assumption that you ve set the To Subject and Body elsewhere logging mylog strFileName c mydata_ formatdatetime Sy m d systime csv private string lastdate formatdatetime Sd systime while 1 if formatdatetime d systime lastdate save the attachment file BEFORE we change the logging set name email strFile logging mylog strFileName logging mylog strFileName c mydata_ formatdatetime y m d systime csv give the logging set time to close yesterday s file before we send the email delay 10 email send endif delay 1 endwhile 7 3 Uploading data using FTP FTP requires DAQFactory Starter or higher and will not work in DAQFactory Express Uploading data using DAQFactory FTP is very similar to Email The variables are slightly different and all start with FTP but the general concept is the same You ll obviously need to know your FTP server address user name and password If your goal is to vi
104. r power digital output is set every time Temperature is read and is above or below the given threshold This may create quite a bit of overhead on the device Even the UE9 takes a few milliseconds to perform each action and if you are doing a lot of different things with the device this can add up So in the original script we look at the most recent point 0 and the next most recent point 1 and only adjust the HeaterPower output if they are on opposite sides of the threshold meaning the temperature has just dropped below or risen above the threshold Once this occurs the HeaterPower output won t be reset until the other threshold is crossed Sample file LIGuideSamples Thermostat ctl 7 2 Sending email out of DAQFactory Email requires DAQFactory Starter or higher and will not work in DAQFactory Express Sending email out of DAQFactory is quite simple You have to set a couple system variables and then call Email 2011 AzeoTech Inc 46 DAQFactory LabJack Application Guide Send First however you need to know your SMTP server s address username and password This can usually be pulled out of your normal email program Before we get into it though please note that DAQFactory does not support SSL so won t work with gmail accounts since they require an SSL connection Since most of the email settings are the same for every email we recommend putting that code in a sequence marked Auto Start instea
105. rHighHigh You also may want to put a divisor at the end to convert to seconds UE9 TimerLowLow TimerLowHigh 2 16 TimerHighLow 2432 TimerHighHigh 2 48 750000 10 Click Apply At this point you can reference this channel like you would any other except putting V in front of it Instead of getting a channel reading you ll get the result of the calculation Since we didn t use any 0 notation this is the entire array calculated from all the readings If you want to graph your channels you d put V TheTime as the X Expression in place of Time You ll need to change the bottom axis type to Lin undo Use Time Width and adjust the Scale From and Scale To 2011 AzeoTech Inc 64 DAQFactory LabJack Application Guide Traces Axes General Colors Fonts Axis Bound Annotations Line Annotations r Scaling EH New Name Bottom Axis eten TheTime 100000 Axis Label to TheTim TT Left Axis 2 40 W TheTime Left Axis 3 Plotting Method Line d Copy Scale From Zoom Left Axis 4 i Left Axis 5 Right Axis Os Asis Color be gt Time width 60 i Left Axis 6 Right Axis 1 Autoscale From fo Right Axis 2 Style Right Axis 3 Lin C Log C Date Time Grid Right Axis 4 a Auto Grid Control Iv Right Axis 5 Right Axis 6 Row fi Major Tick Spacing fi of Full Axis jin TT Minor Tick Spacing fi Full Length Minor Ticks IT Align Thresh Jos ee
106. rform other tasks you generally cannot read inputs or control outputs faster than 100hz using the computer as the timer Of course with the new multicore CPU s you may be able to tweak extra speed out DAQFactory s polling loops essentially putting the acquisition on one core and letting Windows use the other core for display Doing this sort of thing requires more advanced techniques described in the last chapter This section describes how to do software i e DAQFactory polled reading and writing of analog and digital inputs and outputs The techniques are essentially the same for both analog and digital inputs and outputs 9 1 2 The easy way with channels The easiest way to read analog and digital inputs at low speeds i e 100hz or set analog and digital outputs is to use channels as we did in the Basic I O chapter No scripting is required you can easily convert the readings using Conversions and log it using Logging sets For the U3 which allows the specification of the differential channel you can simply put the channel number for the negative side in the Quick Note Special OPC column of the channel If you need more advanced configuration you can still use channels combined with some basic scripting to send the configuration commands to the LabJack For example to set the UE9 resolution to 14 bit and the range on channels 2 and 3 to 5V using device labjack include c program files labjack drivers labjackud h Ad
107. rn how to store this data to disk so that it can be opened with another program for analysis In this example we will create a simple comma delimited file with our pressure data 1 Click on LOGGING in the workspace This will display the logging set summary view Here you can see all your logging sets displayed and their running status A logging set is a group of data values being logged in a particular way to a particular file You can have as many logging sets as you need and they can run concurrently 2 Click on the Add button in the logging set and when prompted for the new name type in MyLog and click OK Like channels and all other DAQFactory names the logging set name must start with a letter and only contain letters numbers or the underscore Once you click OK the logging set view will be displayed for the new logging set You can also get to this view by clicking on the logging set name listed under LOGGING in the workspace You may have to click on the sign next to LOGGING to see your logging sets listed in the workspace 3 Next to Logging Method select ASCII Delimited which is actually the default ASCII Delimited is probably the most common method for data logging as it can be read by most other programs such as Excel Unfortunately it is not as space efficient or fast as the binary methods But unless you have strict space constraints or you are logging more than about 50 000 points per second depending also on your co
108. s AddRequest ID LJ ioPUT TIMER VALUE 1 NumPulses 0 0 0 2 Create a new channel call it NumPulses Device Type Test D 0 I O Type D to A Chan a unique number if you are using more than 1 Test D A channel Click Apply 3 Click on the next to CHANNELS in the Workspace if not already expanded and click on the NumPulses channel 4 Click on the Event tab and put this script in beginseq PulseoOut 2011 AzeoTech Inc 10 Counters and Timers 77 Now you can use the various DAQFactory components to simply set the NumPulses channel and the desired length pulse train will be outputted Just remember that sliders and knobs will continuously update this channel and so are not good for changing NumPulses since the pulse train will likely take longer than the update speed You can also change NumPulses in script NumPulses 500 Just remember that as soon as NumPulses is set the pulse train will start Sample file LJGuideSamples TimerStop ctl 10 5 9 System timer in This mode allows you to read the free running internal 64 bit system timer The frequency of this timer is 750khz for the UE9 and 4MHz for the U3 Since DAQFactory s clock is precise to 1 microsecond 1 MHz and there is a built in latency of a few milliseconds to actually read the LabJack there are really only two uses for this timer The first is when doing triggered stream Here DAQFactory has no way of determining the time of
109. s TimerDuty ctl 10 5 4 Firmware counter in This Timer mode works similar to a counter but uses an interrupt routine to increment the counter so can t handle real high speed counts and has a bit more internal overhead than a regular counter Setting it up is basically the same as period in 1 Enable a Timer AddRequest ID LJ ioPUT CONFIG LJ chNUMBER TIMERS ENABLED 1 0 0 2 Set the mode AddRequest ID LJ ioPUT TIMER MODE 0 LIJ tmFIRMCOUNTER 0 0 3 Set the clock frequency and divisor use system clock so works on U3 and UE9 AddRequest ID LJ ioPUT CONFIG LJ chTIMER CLOCK BASE LJ tcsSYS 0 0 AddRequest ID LJ ioPUT CONFIG LJ chTIMER CLOCK DIVISOR 48 0 0 4 GoOne to actually execute the commands GoOne ID 5 Create a channel to read the Timer WO Type is Timer Channel is the timer in this case 0 You can reset the timer to 0 by using LJ_ioPUT_TIMER_VALUE put please read the section on resetting counters and how to get around it AddRequest ID LJ_ioPUT_TIMER_VALUE 0 0 0 0 Sample file LJGuideSamples TimerFirmCount ctl 10 5 5 Firmware counter in w Debounce This Timer mode works the same as Firmware Counter In but introduces a debounce circuit for mechanical switch counting It is really designed for frequencies less than 10hz mostly push button and reed switch detection Setting it up is similar to the regular Firmware Counter In but has some extra steps to set the debounce
110. select Set To from the available actions 5 For Set To Channel put logging mylog strFileName Click OK At this point you can click on the display of the logging path and it will prompt you for the file path But it d be nicer if it displayed a standard windows File Save Window instead so the user could browse for the file 6 Right click on our variable value component again and select Properties 7 Go back to the Action tab and select Quick Sequence 8 In the white space that appears enter the following script private string path File FileSaveDialog logging mylog strFileName if IsEmpty path logging mylog strFileName path endif 9 Click OK to close then click on the path again to see it work To explain the script In the first line we declare a string variable called path It gets the result of the FileSaveDialog function which is part of a group of functions which are always prefixed with File The FileSaveDialog displays the standard Windows File Save window In the second line we look to see if the path variable is empty This would occur if the user hit Cancel from the Save window If the user didn t hit Cancel then we get to the third line which assigns the path they selected to the logging set Automatically setting the file name Finally lets quickly demonstrate how to automatically set the file name based on the time and date What we need to do is change the start stop logging button to ch
111. sition 3 You can also apply conversions to outputs like we did with inputs in section 4 3 however the conversions work in reverse For inputs the conversion takes the raw voltage counts or other units from the LabJack and converts it into engineering units like temperature or pressure For outputs the conversion takes the engineering units and converts into voltage So for if we had a proportional valve that takes a 0 to 5V signal and we want to be able to 2011 AzeoTech Inc 48 DAQFactory LabJack Application Guide specify the percentage open where 0 OV and 100 5V the conversion would be Value 20 Then to open the valve to 60 we could just do ValvePosition 60 and 3 volts would be outputted from the DAC of the LabJack 2011 AzeoTech Inc 8 Calling the LabJackUD 50 DAQFactory LabJack Application Guide 8 Calling the LabJackUD 8 1 Using and include for LabJack There are two important commands to make communicating with a LabJack using script easier With these commands script in DAQFactory for communicating with a LabJack will look almost identical to the psuedo code that is in the LabJack User s Guide and any C examples provided by LabJack We recommend putting these two functions at the top of a sequence setup as AutoStart so that it runs when your document is loaded All subsequent samples assume this has been done To do this 1 Right click
112. strEmailBody if so copy alerts into email body email strBody strEmailBody reset variable for new alerts strEmailBody and send email email Send endif wait 30 minutes and try again delay 1800 endwhile Note that our OnAlert script will probably generate its own errors until you run our email sending sequence This is because the email sending sequence declares the strEmailBody variable which until then doesn t exist and so we get errors in OnAlert 8 4 Handling Disconnect Reconnect The most useful thing to catch in OnAlert is the pseudo error codes LJE DISCONNECT and UE RECONNECT LJE DISCONNECT is probably more useful as an alarm type alert to tell you that you accidentally unplugged the LabJack and should maybe make the screen red or something similar LJE_RECONNECT however provides a way for you to ensure that the LabJack is reset to a known state on power up Yes the LabJack has the ability to set power on defaults but you may want different defaults depending on what document you are running The best way to do this is to create a sequence will all the commands to set your default LabJack settings You ll want to call this from a sequence marked AutoStart so the LabJack gets configured when you load the document You ll then also want to add code like this to the OnAlert sequence system event to call that configuration code when a reconnect occurs if left strAlert 13 DOO50 00 2001 2
113. ta and control outputs log data to files easily read by other programs like Excel create your own screens for displaying your data using any combination of 10 screen components including buttons graphs images and more For more advanced applications consider one of the other versions of DAQFactory which depending on the version include 42 screen components networking PID alarming a 3800 image library unlimited channels unlimited pages unlimited scripting and much more All your DAQFactory Express applications will work in the other versions of DAQFactory This document will start you on your way using your new device with DAQFactory Express and will also work in all the other versions of DAQFactory Feel free to use DAQFactory Express to its full capabilities If you need a more powerful version such as demonstrated by the trial version please visit www azeotech com or your LabJack reseller to purchase a license This document is not for the LabJack U12 which uses a different driver Please see the DAQFactory User s Guide for information on using the U12 with DAQFactory 1 2 How to use this guide This document explains how to do the most common things with DAQFactory and your LabJack device Because it is likely that you will actually want to do the things described in the first eight chapters we strongly recommend you actually go through the first eight chapters After that you will probably want to jump to the appropriate section
114. ta is acquired This means that output channels which are only updated in their history when they change values will still appear on every logged data line Since you only have one line the Interval parameter does not apply Export Set OneLine Apply Discard Main Details Mode All Data Points gt j Fixed Interval All Data Points aligned Align Threshold 0 Interval Po e d Align Mismatch Type Empty Field Average Duplicate Last Value Snapshot Time Sig Figs 12 Delimited by Use Excel Time Vv Include Headers IV Include Time w all IT Header File n Existing File C Overwrite Append 6 Click Apply 7 If not already expanded click on the next to CHANNELS in the Workspace Select the Pressure channel 8 Click on the Event tab of the channel view An event is script that is run whenever a new value arrives at the channel Enter the following script if Pressure 0 gt 90 beginexport OneLine endif 9 Click Apply That is all that is needed The event code looks at the most recent reading of Pressure and if its over 90 it will start the export set The export set will then log a single line of data Sample file LJGuideSamples LogCondition ctl 2011 AzeoTech Inc 5 Logging 37 5 5 Loading logged data into Excel Assuming you didn t change the default delimiter the logging files that we ve created so far will all be in CSV or comma separated val
115. the left of the equal sign must be something that can take a value and cannot be an expression This can typically be a channel or a variable The part to the right of the equal sign can be any valid expression If a sequence was created with just these three lines and run the sequence would set MyOutputChannel to 3 AnotherOutput to 6 and YetAnotherOutput to 5 divided by the most recent value of InputChannel The sequence would then stop 2011 AzeoTech Inc 6 Intro to scripting 41 6 2 2 Variables Channels provide a place to store input and output readings and their associated histories Often you ll need other places to store other values such as calibration constants counters and flags For this DAQFactory has variables There are five types of variables in DAQFactory global local private registry and static Each variable type can be either a string or a number DAQFactory also supports arrays of values To use a variable you must create it first by declaring it Declaring a variable is done in script by specifying the type of variable and the variable name Like all other names in DAQFactory a variable name must start with a letter and contain only letters numbers and the underscore For example to declare a global variable called Slope global slope Or a private variable called count private count For string variables we add the word string global string UserName You can also do assignment
116. ting We strongly recommend you put comments in your code A comment is simply two slashes followed by whatever you d like to say this is a comment global x x is an important variable because You may think that you ll remember how your script works a year from now but without good comments it is very unlikely The DAQFactory source is probably one half code and one half comments Decimals Whenever you need to type a value that is less than 1 and greater than 1 you should always put a zero in front of the decimal point In other words 0 325 Correct 325 Incorrect O 325 Correct 325 Incorrect The reason for this is that when you have a page full of script the decimal place can easily be lost if there isn t that 0 in front It may seem minor but when its 2am and you can t figure out why your calculations are off because you confused 325 with 325 you ll wish you had gotten into this habit Just look at this last sentence If it was written properly as confused with 325 with 0 325 you ll wish it would be very obvious that the two numbers are not the same 6 2 Scripting basics 6 2 1 Assignment The most basic useful sequence is probably one that sets a few output channels to different values Assignment is done by simply specifying the object to assign a value to an equal sign and the value to assign For example MyOutputChannel 3 AnotherOutput 4 3 2 YetAnotherOutput 5 InputChannel 0 The part to
117. tory gt DAQFactory A splash window will appear followed by the application DAQFactory Untitled Se BRR File Edit View Quick Debug Layout Window Help DEH ep 3 ag mc MMA 9 CONNECTIONS A 7 Local 8 CHANNELS WX CONVERSIONS 4 EXPORT LOGGING mr SEQUENCES CERA CHANNELS E D PAGES Page 0 Page 1 deu o Uonoun4 AAI S sapadold fa E Command Alert la Watch LF Notes For Help press F1 Ecreen Pos x 404 Y 4 The DAQFactory application is setup like most windows applications with a title bar at the top a menu underneath a toolbar underneath that and a status bar at the bottom In addition there are a number of docking windows A docking window means a window that can be docked or attached to the one side of the main application window At this point there are three important docking windows Along the right is the Workspace The Workspace is a listing of various elements of DAQFactory you will work with such as channels scripts logging sets and pages Also along the right but initially tabbed is the help window Click on the Help tab to display the help window Along the bottom is the Command Alert window Normally it is rolled up but if you click on the Command Alert tab it will appear To have it stay visible click on the thumb tack at the top right corner of the window The Command Alert window allows you to
118. treaming other inputs You can stream other inputs besides the analog inputs of your LabJack This is done by specifying special channel numbers when doing LJ_ioADD_STREAM_CHANNEL The important part here is that even though the LabJack is actually streaming something other than an analog input you MUST specify A to D for the I O Type when creating your DAQFactory Channels to receive the data The available channel numbers are slightly different for each LabJack and listed here for your reference U3 193 EIO_FIO 200 Timer0 201 Timeri 210 Counter0 211 Counter1 224 TC Capture 225 TC_Capturel 226 TC_Capture2 227 TC_Capture3 2011 AzeoTech Inc 62 DAQFactory LabJack Application Guide UES 193 EIO_FIO 194 MIO_CIO 200 Timer0 201 Timerl 202 Timer2 203 Timer3 204 Timer4 205 Timer5 210 Counter0 224 TC_Capture0 225 TC_Capturel 226 TC_Capture2 227 TC_Capture3 227 TC_Capture4 227 TC_Capture5 227 TC_Capture6 You may notice that in DAQFactory we have multiple TC_Capture channel numbers where the LabJack documentation only lists one This is to allow you to stream the high order word of multiple timers and counters and keep the data separate in separate channels Internally they are exactly the same so you have to specify the appropriate TC_Capture immediately following its Timer or Counter channel In other words to read the entire 32 bits of Timers 0 and 1 you d do AddRequest 0 LJ_i
119. ts 1 Counts AddValue RawCounts 0 RawCounts 1 RawCounts Time 0 RawCounts Time 1 else Counts AddValue RawCounts 0 RawCounts 1 2432 RawCounts Time 0 RawCounts Time 1 endif The nice part about this is that if DAQFactory gets delayed a few milliseconds before doing the read the hertz measurement will be properly normalized 2011 AzeoTech Inc 72 DAQFactory LabJack Application Guide Sample file LJGuideSamples BasicCounter ctl 10 5 Setting up specific timer modes 10 5 1 PWM out There are two timer counter modes for pulse width modulation PWM one is 16 bit the other 8 bit These and the available timer clocks are described in your LabJack User s manual and vary depending on the device The setup however is largely the same Here s some sample script for setting up and starting a PWM8 on FIO4 As always we assume you ve done using and include someplace else and defined ID appropriately Set the timer counter pin offset to 4 which will put the first timer counter on FIO4 AddRequest ID LJ ioPUT CONFIG LJ chTIMER COUNTER PIN OFFSET 4 0 0 use system clock so works on U3 and UE9 AddRequest ID LJ ioPUT CONFIG LJ chTIMER CLOCK BASE LJ tcSYS 0 0 Enable 1 timer It will use FIOO AddRequest ID LJ ioPUT CONFIG LJ chNUMBER TIMERS ENABLED 1 0 0 Configure Timer0 as 8 bit PWM Frequency will be 1M 256 3906 Hz AddRequest ID LJ ioPUT
120. u could do this in your OnAlert sequence if left strAlert 10 DOO50 00 2001 Ee Streaming 2001 is LJE_RECONNECT StartStream endif Now this assumes that you have a sequence called StartStream that will reconfigure the LabJack and actually restart the stream It also assumes that you ve created a global variable called Streaming that you set to 1 in StartStream and to 0 in StopStream This is so an accident unplug when you aren t streaming doesn t spontaneously start the streaming process Finally this assumes you are using device number 0 first found Please see the section on OnAlert if you are using multiple LabJacks 9 3 Thermocouples Thermocouples are a very common way to measure temperature They come in a wide variety of forms and have a large range Do to their small voltage output and something called a cold junction they are however slightly more challenging to read Most applications need a temperature range of about 50 to 150C though and for these applications you might want to consider using a silicon type sensor as they are cheaper more accurate and much easier to use Examples of these are the EI 1022 and EI 1034 sold by LabJack Thermocouples are simply two different metals that meet at a single point Due to a general property of metals a small voltage is generated that is proportional to the temperature of this junction There are many different types of thermocouples identified by a letter such as
121. u enable timers or counters they will use up the appropriate number of pins starting with FIOO This does not change the rest of the channel numbers So if you have two timers enabled they will be on FIOO and FIO1 FIO2 remains channel 2 to DAQFactory Of course if you use the pin offset option for timers and counters the timers might be on different pins but even the mapping of DAQFactory channel numbers to pins remains the same 3 4 Setting outputs Creating output channels is identical to creating input channels with one important difference Since they are output there is no Timing parameter In fact if you select Analog Output or Digital Output as an I O type you will not be able to edit the channel s timing parameter So to create an output channel we follow the same steps as an input 1 Click on the CHANNELS in the Workspace under Local This will bring up the channel table 2 Click on Add to add a new row to the table 3 In the Channel Name column put a name say Output The channel name can be anything you d like as long as it starts with a letter and contains only letters numbers and the underscore 4 In the Device Type column select LabJack All your LabJack channels will use this Device Make sure not to select LabJack_U12 as this is for the U12 only 5 In the D column enter the ID of your LabJack If you don t know the ID of your LabJack please read the section on setting up your device in the last chapter If
122. ue format This means that for a particular time each channel value in the logging set will be listed separated by commas on a single line of text The nice part about this is that Excel will directly load in a CSV file if you put a csv extension on your file name If you didn t Excel will most likely display an import wizard This is no worry just make sure and select Comma as the delimiter instead of the default of Tab Once the file is loaded into Excel you will see all your data starting in the B column The A column will always have the time Assuming you didn t uncheck the Use Excel Time option on the details page of the logging set the A column will be numbers in the upper 30 000 range or low 40 000 range if it is after July 2009 This is decimal days since 1900 and not terribly useful to us humans To display the date and time in something we can read right click on the A column header to select the entire column and select Format Cells Then select any of the date time formats available Once this is done you will probably have to resize the A column to see the complete date and time If you are doing reasonably fast data the default date time formats won t show values smaller than a second To see millisecond values you will need to select the Custom format section then select one of the date time formats and add 000 at the end Number alignment Font Border Patterns Protection Category So G
123. vices the pins can be either analog or digital input or output DAQFactory automatically configures it to the appropriate setting in this case an analog input To create a digital input simply repeat the same procedure using a different Channel Name and selecting Dig In 2011 AzeoTech Inc 16 DAQFactory LabJack Application Guide for the I O Type If you are using the U3 which uses the same pins for analog and digital signals select a different Channel Number than the one we used for analog zero to use a different pin If using the U3 HV you will have to choose a Channel number that is greater than 3 as the first 4 pins 0 3 are analog input only Channel Table View Duplicate Delete Export Import Apply Discard New Group Channel Name 3 Chn Timing Offset Conversion 0 100 000None O Dig ln 1 1 00 0 00 None Sample file LIGuideSamples InputsSimple cti 3 2 Differential analog inputs On the U3 you can perform differential inputs assigning any other input channel as the negative input To do so put the channel number for the negative side of the input in the Quick Note Special OPC column For the special O 3 6 volt range put channel number 32 in the Quick Note Special OPC column Sample file LJGuideSamples InputsSimpleU3Diff ctl 3 3 Channel Pinouts DAQFactory uses sequential channel numbers The various LabJack devices group their I O pins Here is how they
124. while 1 inside of a sequence and not inside of a component action or an event That said its great for doing things like calibration loops while 1 CalValve 0 delay 600 CalValve 1 delay 60 endwhile The above loop will set the CalValve off for 10 minutes then on for 1 minute and repeat this as long as the sequence runs Its important to notice that we pretty much always put a delay inside of our loops Delay will pause the execution of the script for the specified number of seconds Without the delay the loop would run as fast as your computer will allow and probably starve out Windows making it look like DAQFactory has hung 2011 AzeoTech Inc 7 Some Common Tasks 7 Some Common Tasks 45 7 Some Common Tasks 7 1 Doing things based on an input Often one will want to monitor an input and then perform an action depending on what that input reading is For example we could be monitoring the temperature of a greenhouse and want to turn a heater on when it gets cold and off when it gets hot This is a basic thermostat Assuming we had two channels Temperature an analog input which has been converted to degrees C and HeaterPower which is a digital output to create a simple thermostat that turns on the heater at 15C and off at 22C we d do this 1 Click on the next to CHANNELS in the Workspace to expand this item and show all the channels 2 Click on the Temperature channel
125. while declaring the variable global slope 3 92 In the examples that follow will use a global variable called ID to store the LabJack ID and then use this in place of a constant in all our script Then if we change the ID of the LabJack we ll only have to change the script in one place So what do the data types mean global these variables are accessible everywhere in DAQFactory much like Channels private these variables are only visible in the script that declared them Use privates whenever possible especially for counters used in for loops etc local these variables are used in custom devices protocols and user components They are a bit more advanced and covered in the regular DAQFactory User s Guide static these variables are like privates but unlike privates maintain their values when the sequence that declared them restarts This is a rather advanced variable type registry these variables are globals but are actually stored in the Window s registry and so maintain their values when DAQFactory restarts There are limitations Numeric registry variables are signed 32 bit values so must be between 2147483647 and 2147483647 Registry variables also don t support arrays Finally registry variables are declared and accessed differently Please see the DAQFactory User s Guide for more information 6 2 3 Calling functions There are a wide variety of functions available in DAQFactory scripting to allow you to do many a
126. you only have one LabJack and never expect to use any more you can use 0 zero to have DAQFactory use the first found LabJack on USB Please see the Ethernet setup section if you are using an Ethernet connection to your LabJack UE9 only 6 In the I O Type column select D to A 7 In the Channel column select 0 to set the first analog output channel on your device 8 As mentioned the next column Timing is not used for outputs 9 Leave all the other settings as is and click Apply Unlike inputs where acquisition starts immediately on Apply creating an output channel does not actually set it to a value 2011 AzeoTech Inc 18 DAQFactory LabJack Application Guide Channel Table View Add Duplicate Delete Export Import Apply Discard Main New Group Channel Name Device Type VD a Timing Offset Conversioni Pressure LabJack 1 00 0 00 None MyDialn LabJack 1 00 0 00 None Output Lablack i 10 To quickly set the output to a value we can use the Command Alert window This is not the primary method of setting an output but a quick way to test your settings We ll show a better way in the next chapter The Command Alert window may be rolled up at the bottom of the screen Click on the Command Alert tab to display it Command Alert If you can t see the Command Alert tab try going to View Command Alert The Command Alert window is made up of two
127. your units With output conversions the formula is used to convert your units into the device units So if you had a variable pressure controller that controlled from 0 to 500 psi and took a 0 to 5V output the conversion would be Value 100 Sample file LJGuideSamples AnalogOut ctl 4 7 Toggling a digital output using a button We talked a little about using a descriptive text component to toggle a digital output between its two states at the end of section 4 4 You can also create a button to toggle the output 1 On a page right click and select Buttons amp Switches Button 2 Once the new component is on the screen right click on it and select Properties 3 For the Caption give whatever label you want 4 Click on the Action tab 5 For Action select Toggle Between from the drop down combobox 6 For Action Channel type in the name of your digital output channel 7 For Toggle Between put 0 and 1 For digital outputs only 0 and 1 apply but you could also use this for toggling an analog output between two voltages by specifying other values here 8 Click OK Now you can click on the button and your digital output channel will toggle between 0 and 1 Sample file LJGuideSamples DescriptiveText ctl 2011 AzeoTech Inc 4 Display the data 27 4 8 Viewing Data on the Web Once you have DAQFactory taking some data you can also view it on the web in a browser using the DAQConnect service T

DAQFactory - LabJack Application Guide

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