National Instruments GPIB-USB-A controller with Met/Cal 8.1

[tarzan271]

I am trying to get a NI GPIB-USB-A controller to work with Met/Cal 8.1 on a Win XP machine. In my metcal.ini file it lists the GPIB-USB-A under the ib_type so I would assume there is some compatibility with these older controllers. Does anyone have any ideas?

[USMC kalibrater]

If you have the appropriate drivers and software installed then it would be helpful to know what error you are getting when you try to use the usb A.
If you have another computer that the usb-A is working on that eliminated the controller being bad.

[CalLabSolutions]

I stopped using the USB-A cards a while back.. I don't think it is a Fluke 8.1 issue.. I am guessing they are linking to the updated NI Drivers and those links are not backwards compatable.

If anyone is looking for a USB-A GPIB Controller.. I have one for sale.. Cheap..   Along with a PCMCIA one with cable. 

Mike

This is a good one for the MET/LIST to let customers know running USB-A Cards on XP with MET/CAL 8.0 may have some issues.

[tarzan271]

I fixed it. It was a bad controller. I have never seen one go bad before, but there is a first time for everything. So the answer is, the NI GPIB-USB-A controllers will work with Met/Cal v.8.1 running on Win XP. Thanks for the suggestions.

[Hawaii596]

We run Met/Cal 8.0.46 (or something like that) on laptops.  I have NI GPIB-USB-HS and they work well on it. 

[measure]

Keep in mind that by repairing the GPIB-USB-A controller that all you are doing is buying time. The transfer rate on the GPIB-USB-A is about 650 kb/s, the GPIB-USB-B about 850 kb/s, and the current GPIB-USB-HS about 1.8 Mb/s (488.1). One can't guarantee how long NI will offer 'backward compatibility' or how long computers will function at the slower transfer rate, given the speed of CPUs today, but I have seen the previous NI PCI-based cards fail to work when installed in a faster, 'hot rod' PC. Eventually, I would expect no different behavior from the GPIB-USB-A.

[tarzan271]

Keep in mind that by repairing the GPIB-USB-A controller that all you are doing is buying time. The transfer rate on the GPIB-USB-A is about 650 kb/s, the GPIB-USB-B about 850 kb/s, and the current GPIB-USB-HS about 1.8 Mb/s (488.1). One can't guarantee how long NI will offer 'backward compatibility' or how long computers will function at the slower transfer rate, given the speed of CPUs today, but I have seen the previous NI PCI-based cards fail to work when installed in a faster, 'hot rod' PC. Eventually, I would expect no different behavior from the GPIB-USB-A.

I didn't repair the bad controller. I replaced it with a good one, because we have dozens of the A models lying around. There are no drivers available for the B or HS models on an XP computer. I use the HS's on Vista and 7, but some of our labs only have computers with WinXP to use for MetCal.

[Hawaii596]

So is the data rate on the NI GPIB-USB-A, -B, and -HS kind of analogous to USB 1.0, 2.0 and 3.0?