1. Description
This toolkit works like most I/O based APIs in LabVIEW. You start by opening a reference to your device, you act on your device with reads and writes and then you close the reference to your device when finished.
The way these devices communicate with LabVIEW is by setting up a transfer area in your computer’s memory where values can be written to or read from. At a minimum, the device synchs up with the transfer area every 10 milliseconds. There can only be one transfer area per device meaning you cannot open multiple references to the same device. Also, because you are only dealing with memory locations, you can write to and read from the transfer area any number of times, with any type (digital, analog, etc.) and at any time while the area is running.
All VI parameters follow Robo Interface naming conventions. Below is a conversion from Robo Interface naming to Intelligent Interface naming.
|
Robo Interface |
Intelligent Interface |
|
I1 through I8 |
E1 through E8 |
|
AX & AY |
EX & EY |
|
M1 through M4 |
M1 through M4 |
|
O1 through O8 |
Same terminals but unlabeled |
|
A1 & A2 |
N/A |
|
D1 & D2 |
N/A |
Currently, you can have one Robo Interface connected through USB per computer at a time as well as up to 4 serial connections at one time. This means you can have up to 5 devices running off of one computer at a time.
The Robo IO Extension is the only extension module that has been test. It is confirmed to work when used in conjunction with the Robo Interface.
2. Installation
You must have the NI LabWindows 8.1/CVI run-time engine installed before this toolkit will work. If you do not have this installed, you can get this free from this link. After this is installed, extract the contents of the .zip file to your LabVIEW\user.lib folder. Then, restart LabVIEW. You will now have a Robo Interface palette under the User Libraries palette.