connecting to server

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connecting to server

Post by Guest »

Hi all. I am writing C# software which needs to access data from several recorders. I found the option in PLW Recorder to start a (presumably tcp) server.

What I didn't find is documentation about the protocol for communicating with this socket. How can I enumerate the channels, how can I start reading them? Or is there an easier way to get this data? Judging from threads about direct usb communication, I'm guessing not.

Thanks in advance.

ziko
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Post by ziko »

Hi and thank you for your post.

Why would you need to connect to a server? Every device you open will have a handle, you can then use this handle to identify the individual units.

Let me know if I understood/misunderstood your query.

Kind regards
Ziko

Technical Specialist

Guest

Post by Guest »

Hi, how can I open a device? Sorry if I'm asking something common knowledge, I have no experience with your product. Is there some sort of managed api I can be using?

The other thing is that the PLW Recorders are set up with names corresponding to each sensor channel and I would like to be able to access these. From what I understand so far, the device itself has no knowledge of these names?

Guest

Post by Guest »

It aslo might be important for you to know that I don't have advance knolwedge of which specific devices will be used. The software I'm creating is for a company which has several different devices and models which move from experiment to experiment, so if there's no single library that can be used to manage all models, I'd still prefer to interface with the PLW Recorder.

Thanks.

PS: Great idea of not requiring registration. More vendors should do this for support.

ziko
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Location: St Neots

Post by ziko »

Picolog recorder is the software we use for data logging on most of our scopes and data loggers (data acquisition units to be precise). In the software :

1) You can configure which device you want to use
2) How many units you want to connect (up to 20 for USB and serialand 3 on parallel)
3) You can configure sample rate
4) You can configure how long you want to record
5) You can configure the voltage ranges
6) You can give channel names
7) You can do scaling and some channel maths.

The software sends instructions to the unit to configure it. If you wanted to achieve simillar results when writing your own software then you would need to look at our technical reference section of the user manual for the device in question. There is a list of function calls with a description of what each of them does and the parameters required. The driver is provided and some programming examples are also included. You can do the following by using the function calls:

a Configure how many units want (by calling the openunit function x amount of times for each instance with a different variable or perhaps different element in an array)
b Configure your sample rate
c How many channels
d How many samples you require
e What your voltage range is
and various other things.

Points 6 and 7 are things that you would have to come up with.

What device do you have in mind? You can find the software examples on our software download page for your specific product :

http://www.picotech.com/software.html

Let me know if this helps.

Kind regards
Ziko

Technical Specialist

Guest

Post by Guest »

Hi, currently we are using a PT-104 unit and a usb TC-08 for low frequency temperature monitoring. There is no requirement for my software to allow the configuration of these devices, I just need to be able to access the data they're collecting. This is currently being done by reading logs, but realtime analysis is now required.

For various reasons, I'd like to avoid working directly with your hardware: operators are already familiar with your software and how to configure it it, the devices used may change so I'd have to implement connectivity for every potential temperature datalogger you offer, you don't seem to offer managed .net wrappers so writing that would add to the development time along with duplicating the configuration options dialogs, etc.

Ultimately I'd like to connect to your software's server and poll the channels from there if that's possible.

Thanks.

ziko
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Post by ziko »

Hi what you can do is use DDEs, please have a look at section 7.8 on the user manual

http://www.picotech.com/document/pdf/plw044.pdf

Kind regards
Ziko

Technical Specialist

Guest

Post by Guest »

Hi. Thanks for the suggestion. I've implemented a DDE listener and it appears that when two instances of PLW Recorder are running, only one is broadcasting these messages. Because multiple devices are used, multiple instances are running configured for each individual one. Is there a way to listen to several instances? Or is there a version of your software that can handle multiple devices at once?

Thanks.

ziko
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Post by ziko »

Hi in PicoLog recorder you can run multiple devices in one instance, you just select the "Use Multiple Converters" box.

Kind regards
Ziko

Technical Specialist

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