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Semi-Auto GPIB Tester

What this software is

  • A tool to graphically send basic GPIB commands such as ibwrt, ibrd, ibrsp, ibclr etc.
  • A semi automatic GPIB command sequencer. Loading/saving sequences is provided as a feature.

What this software isn't

  • A fully automatic tester; not flow control mechanisms are provided so the user must split complicated flows into smaller sequences that it executes in an arbitrary order.

Supported platforms

  • Windows 7/10 - using NI488.2 GPIB driver
  • Linux Ubuntu 16.10 - using linux-gpib driver

Dependencies

Source code dialect is Python 3 and the dependencies are as listed below. For python packages, make sure to install using pip3 if pip does not point to pip3 by default.

Common

  • Qt5
  • pyvisa
  • PyQt5
  • configparser

Linux

  • pyvisa-py (custom)
  • linux-gpib (see below installation instructions)

Windows

  • pyinstaller (Optional; only used to build the Windows standalone executable)
  • WiX toolset (Optional; only used to build the Windows installer)

linux-gpib installation guide

Performed on Ubuntu 16.10 with linux kernel 4.8.0-30-generic.

  1. wget https://netix.dl.sourceforge.net/project/linux-gpib/linux-gpib%20for%203.x.x%20and%202.6.x%20kernels/4.0.3/linux-gpib-4.0.3.tar.gz
  2. tar -xvf linux-gpib-4.0.3.tar.gz
  3. Ubuntu still likes python2 and we want python3 bindings and installation destination from linux-gpib. Temporarily point python to python3 by sudo ln -sf /usr/bin/python3 /usr/bin/python
  4. cd linux-gpib-4.0.3/
  5. ./configure
  6. make
  7. sudo make install
  8. Undo the python->python3 link using sudo ln -sf /usr/bin/python2 /usr/bin/python
  9. The linux-gpib installer puts the linux-gpib.so library in a location that cannot be found by pyvisa. Make a symlink as sudo ln -s /usr/local/lib/libgpib.so.0 /usr/lib/libgpib.so.0
  10. Install pyvisa and pyvisa-py using pip3 install pyvisa pyvisa-py
  11. Test if pyvisa sees the GPIB backend by executing python3 -m visa info. It should contain the following line:

GPIB INSTR: Available via Linux GPIB (b'4.0.3')

  1. Add current user to group gpib: sudo usermod -a -G gpib $(whoami)
  2. Example /etc/gpib.conf provided below, call sudo gpib_config when you connect the USB-GPIB-HS. 
    interface {
        minor = 0       /* board index, minor = 0 uses /dev/gpib0, minor = 1 uses /dev/gpib1, etc. */
        board_type = "ni_usb_b" /* type of interface board being used */
        name = "gpibprobe"      /* optional name, allows you to get a board descriptor using ibfind() */
        pad = 1 /* primary address of interface             */
        sad = 0 /* secondary address of interface           */
        timeout = T3s   /* timeout for commands */

        eos = 0x0a      /* EOS Byte, 0xa is newline and 0xd is carriage return */
        set-reos = yes  /* Terminate read if EOS */
        set-bin = no    /* Compare EOS 8-bit */
        set-xeos = no   /* Assert EOI whenever EOS byte is sent */
        set-eot = yes   /* Assert EOI with last byte on writes */

        /* settings for boards that lack plug-n-play capability */
        base = 0        /* Base io ADDRESS                  */
        irq  = 0        /* Interrupt request level */
        dma  = 0        /* DMA channel (zero disables)      */

        master = yes    /* interface board is system controller */
}

device {
        minor = 0
        name = "prober"
        timeout=T3s
        pad = 5
        sad = 0
}
  3. $ lsmod | grep ni should now contain these 2 modules. 
    ni_usb_gpib            36864  0
gpib_common            40960  1 ni_usb_gpib