using VMIC VMIPCI-5565 with acutronic 2 axis table

we want to communicate with acutrol 3000 table using VMIC card 5565, so is there any specific command reference for each instrument or General commands are used for all instruments.

thanks

[Walter Roberson]

"reflective memory" ? I do not think I have encountered that term before?

[Rena Berman]

(Answers dev) Restored question.

Answer 1

[Jaime]

Hi Haider, I am not sure if I follow your question. The ACUTROL(r)3000 (A3K) does support the VMIC 5565 and if you have MatLab drivers for it, or you know how to write them, you can certainly communicate with the A3K with your setup. As for the protocol used, the A3K support 2 protocols via the RMI (Reflective Memory Interface): A) The ACL or ACUTROL Command Language, and B) the real time protocol. There is a reference manual for the ACL and resembles much the original IEEE488 or GPIB standard. For the Real TIme protocol, there is also a manual. This protocol is proprietary so is very unlikely that other instrument would be compatible. The ACL however has commands similar to other GPIB instruments (*idn?, *clr, etc) Let me know if this helps and if you need more assistance. J.

Answer 2

[Safiya]

Dear Jaime,

Thanks a lot for guiding me in an exact way. this is what i was in search of. So it is now clear to me that there should be command language like IEEE488 OR GPIB, so I must contact to Acutrol manufacturer to send me command reference. secondly if we write command like (*idn) how to write to reflective memory. should we convert or cast the data type or simply write directly , because there is "pack " block , in Matlab xpc examples. (search and enter VMIC)

Thanks

[Walter Roberson]

In MATLAB, the string '*idn?' would internally use 16 bit characters. The device very likely needs 8 bit characters, so you will need to use uint8('*idn?') and write that.

Answer 3

[Jaime]

Mr. Roberson above is right and thanks for his response. I was unaware that internally MatLab was 16-bit chars ("wide chars" in other languages), but in terms of the ACUTROL interface I do know that it takes 8-bit chars. So thanks again for the clarification. In terms of getting the command reference manual, yes indeed it exists and you should get it from the manufacturer. Their website is www.acutronic.com and from their technical contact information the email address is [e-mail]

[Walter Roberson]

The documentation for char() indicates it supports code points up to 65535; the documentation about how Locale is used indicates that although MATLAB will use the current character set, code points above 65535 might not work properly.

Or you could just try

>> 0 +char(100000)

Warning: Out of range or non-integer values truncated during conversion to character.

ans =

65535

This isn't usually a problem if you are writing to a serial port as serial port output normally converts to 8 bit characters, but this would be a problem if you are using shared memory.