Computmotor 6K Motion Controller LabView program

Question

Hello,
I am using the Viewpoint Compumotor 6k Motion Controller VI's. We have the motion controller plugged in through serial port. I'm looking at the Functions they offer(different VI's), but I don't see any for serial port. They have a VI 6k Communication Launcher.VI, but it looks like that's only for Ethernet connection not through Serial. Does anyone know how to create a connection with serial port. 

Answer 1

The first thing you should do is set up a serial connection, because you'll need it to configure the ethernet connection if you decide to go that route.  Once you have the serial connection working you might decide it's all you need.  You also might want to use serial if you don't want to put your 6k on your local network and you can't get a second ethernet card for your computer.  The commands are the same over either connection so you can switch between them anytime.  Which one is better for you depends somewhat on what you need the 6k to do.
If you're interacting a lot with the 6k and response speed isn't critical, the serial connection is fine.  For repeated motions and faster response, the ethernet connection is better.  Initially, I wrote programs on the 6k and ran them by sending the program name over the serial connection.  Each program would print a response to the serial port that LabVIEW could read.  It also provided flexibility for me to write individual 6k commands from LabVIEW when necessary, but it was slow because the 6k takes time to parse text into program names and LabVIEW needed to check the serial port to see if a program finished.  A faster approach is to assign a program to run when a specific input is triggered using INSELP.  That input can be a bit in a variable - a virtual input.  The ethernet communication lets you send variable values directly to the 6k, so you can run a 6k program by sending the right variable value.  Similarly the 6k can send an alert over the ethernet link when motion completes, which is simpler than putting a print command in every 6k program and checking for a response on the serial port.