Adding LAN/SCPI Instruments with NI-VISA

NI-VISA is used to communicate with LAN/SCPI devices, such as third party battery cyclers, chillers, and environmental chambers.

  1. From the VeriStand Editor, launch System Explorer.
  2. Expand Controller and select Custom Devices in the configuration tree.
  3. Right-click Custom Devices and select Instrument Addon.
  4. Select VISA as the Protocol.
  5. Click OK.
  6. Configure the following settings:
    Figure 1. LAN/SCPI Instrument Configuration Page


    1. Enter the a unique name in the Name field to reflect the instrumentation being used.
    2. In the PCL Decimation field, enter the rate, in Hz, at which communication with the instrument occurs. For example, if you set the Controller’s Target Rate to the recommended 1,000 Hz in Configuring the VeriStand Engine (cRIO-9047), and the PCL Decimation to 100, communication with the instrument occurs at 10 Hz. This custom device is designed to communicate at tens of Hz.
    3. Enter the IP address for LAN instrumentation in the VISA Resource. This typically takes the form TCPIP::xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx::INSTR, where xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx refers to the instrument’s IP address.
      Note Discovery of VISA resources is not supported on Linux x64 targets.
    4. Configure Enable Termination Character, Append Write Termination Character, and Termination Character as needed for the instrument you are communicating with.
  7. Configure messages to send to your device, per Configuring Instrument Messaging.
    Note You can reuse configurations you have completed for a specific instrument by right-clicking the custom device and selecting Export Config. This saves the personality to a DAT file. When creating a new instance of the instrument, you can then right-click Custom Devices and select Instrument Addon. When the Set Your Initial Settings dialog appears, change the Protocol to VISA, set the Previous Personality Path to the path of the saved DAT file, and select OK. Then change any configuration that is specific to this instrumentation instance, for example, VISA Resource.
  8. Repeat steps 3 through 7 for each LAN/SCPI instrument in your system.
  9. Save the system definition file and configure instrument communication as listed in Configuring Instrument Messaging.