1. ki4800_LV7.zip Driver
2. ki4800.txt File Contents

ki4800.txt Driver File Contents (ki4800_LV7.zip)

***********************************************
Additional Information about
ki4800 (Kikusui PIA4800 series) LabVIEW Driver
(c)1998-2003 KIKUSUI ELECTRONICS CORP.
***********************************************

[ Fundamental Knowledge ]

(1) ki4800 LabVIEW Driver Rev2.0
This instrument driver is designed for use with controlling Kikusui PIA4800 series Power Supply Controller through GPIB or RS232 interface.  The actual models that can be accessed through the interface are PIA4810 and PIA4830.  

(2) System Requirement 
This instrument driver has a dependency upon the "PIA4800 Utilities" - an accompany software that comes with the PIA4800 hardware products. Since the utility software runs under Win32 environment (Win95/98/Me/NT4/2k/XP) only, the ki4800 instrument driver also runs under the same environment.  
The system requirements are:

a) Windows 95/98/Me/NT4/2K/XP
b) LabVIEW 6.0 or later
c) VISA Library 2.0 or later
d) PIA4800 Utilities

* NOTE
Unless the PIA4800 Utilities is installed, some VIs may show broken arrows when a re-compilation has been performed.  To avoid this, do not forget installing PIA4800 Utilities on your system prior to opening ki4800(u).llb or your app source codes.  If the driver VIs are already having broken arrows, re-install the ki4800(u).llb over the broken driver files.

(3) Installation
Similarly to other typical instrument drivers, you can just locate the driver files (LLB and MNU files) in the instr.lib\ki4800 folder under your LabVIEW main directory.  But prior to using it, you need to install the PIA4800 Utilities.  This is true for not only your development environment, but runtime environment for your app software also requires the accompany software to be installed.

[ ActiveX Dependency ]

(4) The only dependency found in the driver modules is "KI4800 PIMBASE Pickup Track Properties.vi" in the ki4800u.llb. This VI accesses an ActiveX DLL (PIMBASE.DLL) located in the \Program Files\Common Files\Kikusui Shared folder.  The DLL in turn accesses the PIMDRV.LOG, which lists all the supported DC power supply and load models.  The purpose of using the PIMBASE.DLL and PIMDRV.LOG is easily obtain the power supply info such as model name and operational capabilities.  None of instrument access (through GPIB and RS232) is performed.

[ Multiple Control For Each Supply/Load ]

(5) In general, you access an instrument with a VISA session associated with it.  But PIA4800 is a "multi-channel" supply/load controller.  So we designed that each of terminal supplies/loads can be controlled as if an independent instrument.

Therefore the Initialize.vi has two additional parameters - NODE and CH that specify a specific instance of the terminal supply or load.  The Initialize.vi embeds a 32bit combination value called "Track Info" - includes CH, NODE, and MODEL-ID - into the VISA session's "User-data" field.  This means a VISA session is truly associated with a specific NODE/CH address.  

For instance, if you have two channels of power supply [NODE1 - CH1] and [NODE1 - CH2] under the PIA4810 GPIB address 1 [GPIB0::1::INSTR], your app will have to call the Initialize.vi twice - one is for CH1 and another is CH2.  These two VISA sessions returned from the Initialize call really distinguish the two channels.  Also your app will have to call Close.vi respectively for closing the sessions.

[ Track Info Bitmap ]
(6) This instrument driver has independent VISA sessions for each different nodes/channels.  Each VISA session caches a 32bit data named Track Info Bitmap in the "User Data" attribute.  The data keeps MODEL-ID, NODE, CH, and OP-type in a combined 32bit integer.  The assignment is shown below.

Bit 31 - 26 (6 bits):  OP-type (1=OP01 adapter, 2=OP02 adapter, 0x11=PMR, 0x21=PAM, 0x22=PAS)
Bit 25 - 24 (2 bits):  CH (1 to 4)
Bit 23 - 16 (8 bits):  NODE (1 to 16 for Analogue OP01/02, 5-35 for Digital)
Bit 15 - 0 (16 bits):  MODEL-ID

//   3 3 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1
//   1 0 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 0 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 0 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 0
//  +-----------+---+---------------+-------------------------------+
//  | OP-type   |CH | NODE          |            MODEL-ID           |
//  +-----------+---+---------------+-------------------------------+

    Mind that the bitmap layout has changed from previous LabVIEW drive. 
    OP-Type width is changed to 6bit from 5bit, CH width is changed to 2 bit from 3 bit.

The combined value will be embedded into the "User-Data" attribute when you call the Initialize.vi.


[ Support Contact ]
This instrument driver is developed by KIKUSUI, not by N.I. If you have a question specific for using ki4800 driver and PIA4800 series hardware, please contact KIKUSUI Service [service@kikusui.co.jp.]