Ignore offline fieldpoint node

Question

Hi all,
I have a fieldpoint system with 4 nodes (2 ethernet nodes: cFP-1808's, and 2  Controller nodes: cFP-2120's). I want to be able to start the embedded vi's on each of the controller nodes regardless of the states of the other nodes. The vi's read channels from each of the nodes but if one of the nodes is offline, the vi won't start. I want the vi to start (and just return the default or garbage data for the offline channels). Also, I'm running a shared variable engine on each of the controller nodes so again, if one of the nodes is offline, I would like to still be able to start any vi's that use the shared variables from the offline engine and just return garbage data for that shared variable. So the crux of the problem is that I need to start a vi running no matter what the state of the other nodes are. I have automatic error handling disabled but this still doesn't enable me to start the vi's when a node is offline,
Thanks, Derek. 

Answer 1

Hi Galson,
I think the way to do what you are looking for is to write to Network Published Shared Variables on your FieldPoint controllers. Then on other systems you can read these variables, and if there is no new data on the variable, it will simply read the last value it read. There is no way to use a FieldPoint read that is not connected to anything without getting an error.
As far as ensuring that the shared variable will still be available, you can host all of your variables on your local PC. Then, a FieldPoint that is offline will not take the variables offline as well.
Regards,
Stephen S.
National Instruments
Applications Engineering