Continue to Site

Welcome to our site!

Electro Tech is an online community (with over 170,000 members) who enjoy talking about and building electronic circuits, projects and gadgets. To participate you need to register. Registration is free. Click here to register now.

  • Welcome to our site! Electro Tech is an online community (with over 170,000 members) who enjoy talking about and building electronic circuits, projects and gadgets. To participate you need to register. Registration is free. Click here to register now.

LabView Training

Status
Not open for further replies.

Mikebits

Well-Known Member
First, I would like to say, I get no compensation for my endorsement here. LabView is an industry standard software for control of test equipment used in the industry. To become a Certified LabView developer is a good way to bolster your resume, of course understanding test engineering helps. For very top notch LabView training online, I would recommend Sixclear. https://www.sixclear.com/

This guys is the best for teaching all the essentials of LabView and if you have a question, he is an email away. The price for his course is low considering what his training brings. More job opportunities for starters.

LabView is the lab software used to control test equipment in a production environment. Of course there are other uses for LabView.
I felt so happy with the training I received, I felt compelled to share the link.
 
Last edited:
One other point I would like to make. If your interest is in test engineering, then I would suggest that you learn LabView. It is the spoken language in the test engineering circles. Do not be put off by LabView, it is simply another programming language, and quite frankly, a much easier one to learn if your the visual type of learner. After all, it is a visual programming language which is perfect for the visually inclined :)
 
Learning Labview in it's infancy when it was constantly changing was a real bear. It was also going from a Mac only product to Linux and Windows It had issues with flicker when displaying numbers. It could be fixed programmability. It had no error structure. The version I first learned was LV 2.2.1 or possibly earlier than that. Once a program (VI) is upgraded to a new version of LV, you can't go back. This was about the Windows 3.1 time frame. The obvious choice was a Mac because of the long file names and Windows had 8.3 at the time. The Mac had a flat memory model where Windows had the 640 K limitation at the time. Later, Windows became the preferred choice.

I didn;t do too badly because I effectively trained a guy to write a program with me acting more of a project manager. My role was to teach LabVew which I didn;t kno and to work out the details. I designed the program to use simulation, so hardware wasn't needed. I wrote the hardware drivers for speed.

We didn't do too badly. The program replaced a PDP-11 with x-y recorders and ran for 17 years before re-written and replaced. I wanted to use SMU technology, but was told no, because of price and it uses feedback and aqusition time was slower. No computer issues except a bad floppy drive and dust. The computer was a Mac Centris 650: https://www.everymac.com/systems/apple/mac_centris/specs/mac_centris_650.html

Later, the SMU technology was used.

Bundled into this upgrade was a system that needed an IEEE-488 monochromator or something interfaceable. That didn;t exist until after the first project was done. I was going to control stepper drivers directly through a Rorze stepper interface, but that got canned. The monochometer included the needed filters and one shutter as well, so the filter wheel I machined wasn't needed either.

The old monochometer had start, stop and speed and the PDP-11 could keep track via interrupts. A filter wheel was missing and so were electrical shutters..
I'm not sure if limit sensors existed, but an org sensor did not. In any event, I had planned on using a stepper motor controller and writing a device driver for that. I got close.

Writing a device driver will really slow your development time. Now Labview drivers are usually available, but possibly with a version of Labview you don't have.
Windows DLL's were sometimes used. Not sure what the deal is today, though.

For those wanting to play with Labview at home
https://store.digilentinc.com/labview-home-bundle/

is really cheap compared to the professional version.
 
I used to do a bit of Labview programming professionally, but only got as far as CLAD officially, and got to the point where I felt I could pass the CLD should I take it.

The training is definitely worthwhile, and the whole NI suite is a powerful ecosystem in the right setting with the right funding. Unfortunately where I was using it industry wasn't ready, or advanced enough. PLC's were often sufficient for the industrial applications, or cheaper hardware/software solutions often used for the test applications. Cost was definitely the killer.

Its was really annoying though, because often I truly believed the long term cost savings of adopting NI hw/sw would pay off over everything else. But the people paying the bills disagreed. Such is life.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.

Latest threads

New Articles From Microcontroller Tips

Back
Top