How do I discover the setup of a cFP module in LabView?

Question

I have a cFP 1808 with two AI-100's and two TC-120's that I am communicating with just fine.  I would like to write as generic an acquisition program as possible, and so my question is how do I read the ranges and scales of each channel that is avaliable on my modules.  For instance, if the user sets up in MAX that he wants the TC-120s to report C instead of F I want to be able to capture that with LabView and make note of it when the user records data.  Another use case is AI-100's will be used to read pressure transducers, which will have a scale applied to them (setup in MAX, I think) to get psia or psig.  I want to be able to capture the fact that some transducers are psig and some are psia.  Any idea how I might accomplish this with LabView?  As a side note how do I get the com port that is avaliable on the 1808 to show up in MAX to be used by LabView?
Thanks,
    Chris Davis

Answer 1

Chris,
You can not use the regular FieldPoint VIs to get range information, although if you create Attribute Channel Items, you would be able to read the attributes of a particular channel. Ranges and attribute settings for FieldPoint modules are described in the FP-1000/1001 Programmers Reference Manual. The FP-1000/1001 Programmers Reference Manual is located at:
http://digital.ni.com/manuals.nsf/websearch/EE241C7357D3F8CE862567840072F554
In order to get both range and attribute information, you should use DataSocket to communicate via Logos (the NI custom ethernet protocol used by FieldPoint modules). The following two articles, in conjunction with the manual above, should give you all the information you need to interpret range and attribute information.
http://zone.ni.com/devzone/conceptd.nsf/webmain/A6617392B393C4B886256ACB0053AEBE
http://zone.ni.com/devzone/conceptd.nsf/webmain/be31272f09bbbe1c86256adc00743576
At least as far as NI-FieldPoint 4.1 (haven't used 5.0 yet), you could not add scales to FieldPoint channels unless you were using the LabVIEW-DSC module (which allows scaling on tags), so you will have to do scaling in your software (or unless they added it to 5.0).
Also, the serial port on the cFP-1808 is designed to allow the cFP-1808 to respond to serial data just as the FP-1000/1001 do. Thus, you can not programmatically access the serial port.
Regards,
Aaron