Frankonia FC05 driver

Discussion and questions regarding the RadiMation device drivers that control the measurement equipment.
amunoz
Posts: 19
Joined: 20 Mar 2012, 15:42

Re: Frankonia FC05 driver

Post by amunoz »

Hello John,

finally i got some time to test the last drivers. I'm glad to tell you that now both turntable and antenna mast are moving. Unfortunately, once the movement has stopped the system returns a message indicating that not all bytes have been delivered to the GPIB interface. I'm afraid that this is related to *OPC command but that's only a hunch.

Another thing to comment is that turntable spins more that it should (or it seems to).

Attached you will find captured NI trace.

Regards,

Toni
Attachments
20120720 - Turntable movement.zip
FC05 Turntable trace
(1.91 KiB) Downloaded 454 times
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joro
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Re: Frankonia FC05 driver

Post by joro »

Hello Toni,

Thanks for providing me the NI-SPY file again. It is however not really obvious what is going wrong.
The NI-SPY file does contain some very strange responses from the Frankonia FC05 (it seems that the answers of two often asked questions are swapped).
I also checked the response of the Frankonia FC05 that was captured in the first NI-SPY file of this thread.
That original NI-SPY file is using the following steps:
- Wait for a second
- Ask the current angle
- Ask if the turntable is still turning

I now made an improvement in the our device driver to follow this same procedure. I also included more checks and retries on the responses of the Frankonia FC05. Hopefully this will solve the issue with the strange answers.
Could you test the updated device drivers again? Please create a NI-SPY file from the start of the test, because in the last NI-SPY file I'm missing the beginning.

I do have another question:
- You wrote that the antenna tower is also moving. Is the antenna tower working correctly or does it also raise the same error as the turntable?

With thanks in advance,
John
amunoz
Posts: 19
Joined: 20 Mar 2012, 15:42

Re: Frankonia FC05 driver

Post by amunoz »

Hello John,

yesterday i managed to have some time to test the drivers again. To test the drivers i get into radiated emission multiband.

I tested the FC05 controller both for antenna mast & turntable. The first thing to notice is that system check sometimes fail to recognize FC05 controller. Trying again resulted in no error and i commanded the antenna mast to change polarisation. Then system stalls for three or four seconds and then the program show the moving antenna (0%) @ the command line. After a while the antenna starts moving, finished the movement and then the program pop-up a message "not all bytes have been written to the GPIB".

I don't know how to get a step forward on this. If you want a full log of movements with the FC05 propietary program in order to understand what the hell does the FC05 software you only have to ask for.

Regards,

Toni
Attachments
20120724 - FC05 Antenna Mast.zip
(19.41 KiB) Downloaded 443 times
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joro
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Re: Frankonia FC05 driver

Post by joro »

Hello Toni,

Thanks again for testing the updated device driver again. The total NI-SPY file is very helpful again. I see the same actions in the NI-SPY as what you described.
I do have some additional questions right now:
  • The FC05 returns an error: "-241: Hardware missing". This error is not documented in the manual that I have of the FC05. Do you know what could be wrong?
  • How long does it take for the polarization to change if you trigger this manually? We expect that the FC05 will complete the polarization within 10-15 seconds.
With best regards,
John
amunoz
Posts: 19
Joined: 20 Mar 2012, 15:42

Re: Frankonia FC05 driver

Post by amunoz »

Hello John,
The FC05 returns an error: "-241: Hardware missing"
GPIB controller could not connect to turntable/mast. But i can assure that both turntable & mast were responsive.
How long does it take for the polarization to change if you trigger this manually? We expect that the FC05 will complete the polarization within 10-15 seconds.
With FC05 propietary, once commanded (button pushed), the movement starts inmediatly and completes in about six seconds (two runs averaged).

With best regards,
Toni
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joro
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Re: Frankonia FC05 driver

Post by joro »

Hello Toni,

I made some additional improvements again:
  • Read all system errors during the initialization of the device
  • Do not include a *OPC? appended to the change polarization command
  • Wait 10 seconds after the start of polarization, and ask *OPC? after it
  • Only send an ABOR when the movement should stop
I'm still seeing problems with the swapping of responses of the FC05 related to our queries. I hope that these modifications reduce those problems.
Could you test the udpated drivers again?

Thanks in advance,
John
amunoz
Posts: 19
Joined: 20 Mar 2012, 15:42

Re: Frankonia FC05 driver

Post by amunoz »

Hello John,

first of all, sorry for the delay. I've been very busy these days.

The new drivers perform more or less as the previous ones. System starts moving (movement is completed correctly), stops, but system keep waiting and program become unresponsive.

I've captured the trace moving turntable & antenna mast since i started radimation. I also decided to log what happens when moving with the propietary FC05 Frankonia program. As i understand from the captured log, mast movement involves only a polarization set without checking if movement is completed or not.

I'll try to check manually which commands (from manual) are REALLY supported in the FC05 controller. This way you'll have a solid basis to work with. I'll report them as soon as i can

Regards,

Toni
Attachments
20120730 - Radimation vs. Propietary FC05.zip
Radimation & propietary FC05 logs
(42.19 KiB) Downloaded 463 times
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joro
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Re: Frankonia FC05 driver

Post by joro »

Hello Toni,

I checked your latest NI-SPY file again. It seems that the control of the Frankonia FC05 has been improved now.
Based on the information in the NI-SPY file, I can see that RadiMation starts the rotation of the Turntable, that it detects that the turntable turned too far, and it starts a correction for this overshoot.
However suddenly after that the turntable is not responding anymore to additional commands and requests.

The NI-SPY file is however also containing a lot of other data. Could you perform the test again, where you only use the turntable device? Please use virtual devices for all the other instruments. So create a 'Virtual Spectrum Analyzer'. This will prevent that communication with other devices is disturbing the capturing of the NI-SPY.

The NI-SPY file still contains some warnings about 'missing hardware', I have an idea that this is caused by the *CLS and *ESE commands. I have received an updated firmware from Frankonia. It could be that that will be fixing the missing hardware errors.

With thanks in advance and with best regards,
John
amunoz
Posts: 19
Joined: 20 Mar 2012, 15:42

Re: Frankonia FC05 driver

Post by amunoz »

Hello John,

after installing the FC05 update (V2.3), things have improved partially. The tests were performed in radiated emission manual mode. Radimation version 5.8.35 with 25.07.2012 driver system. Interesting things:
-Turntable is detected & can be positioned correctly. Turntable position is not showed in radimation (turntable was positioned in 90º, radimation showed 0º). Sometimes, movement is nearly completion but radimation hangs and a hard shutdown is neccesary
-Antena check is completed but the antenna can not be moved. Radimation shows a "hardware not detected" dialog. After that turntable became iresponsive too. Also, antena polarization is not showed in radimation (antenna was vertical, radimation showed horizontal).

As usual, GPIB logs attached.

Regards,

Toni
Attachments
20120824 - GPIB logs.zip
Turntable, antena mast & propietary logs
(13.27 KiB) Downloaded 464 times
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joro
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Re: Frankonia FC05 driver

Post by joro »

Hello Toni,

Some while ago, we did send you an updated device driver for the Frankonia FC05 controller.
Could you confirm that this device drivers is working without problems? Or do you still have some problems regarding the control of the FC05?

Thanks in advance,
John
amunoz
Posts: 19
Joined: 20 Mar 2012, 15:42

Re: Frankonia FC05 driver

Post by amunoz »

Hello John,

although i've not commented it here, the FC05 driver works as expected. We have found no problems with this driver.

Thank you for the good work.

Best regards,

Toni
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