9.274 HP-Powermeter-Legacy

This page describes the device driver and the device window for a single channel Hewlett-Packard Powermeter using SCPI Hewlett-Packard Interface Bus (GPIB/HP-IB) with the legacy classic protocol.

It was tested with:

Device window pages

The following table shows which device window pages are available with this individual device type. Tool-bar functions not mentioned here are described at the general description of device windows .

Configuration parameters

At the maintenance page of the device window there are a couple of configuration parameters which must be set to make the software talk to the device.

parameter description
address Enter the GPIB address of the powermeter here (0..31)
config.displayMode Select the desired power unit (W/dB(Rel)/db(Ref)/dBm).
config.calFactor En/Disable usage of front panels cal factor.

Uncalibrated fault

The device driver shows all measurement faults reported by the power meter in one common fault flag called "Uncalibrated". This includes beside the calibration fault reported by the device also measurement over-/underflow faults and a pending power up selftest fault condition.

GPIB Interface setup

This device is operated through a GPIB (HPIB) interface. The sat-nms software actually supports two types of GPIB interfaces: The ENET100 by National Instruments and the Prologix Ethernet to GPIB interface. As the first one is no longer available, new installations should use the Prologix interface.

When configuring the sat-nms software for GPIB devices, type and parameters of the GPIB interface are set as the interface name, "GPIB" is selected as communication protocol. With a Prologix interface, the interface name is something like "PRLX:10.0.0.1", where PRLX selects the Prologix and 10.0.0.1 is an example for the IP address of the interface. With a ENET100 interface (supported for compatibility reasons), the interface name is "ENET:0" for the first interface, "ENET:1" for the second one.

Multiple devices can be operated a the same GPIB, these devices have to be configured all at the same interface. Configuring two or more GPIB interfaces with the same index ot IP address will cause communication faults and misconfigured devices.

Variables defined by this device driver

name type flags range
info.driver TEXT R/O StringRange R/O
lowLevel.cmd TEXT StringRange
lowLevel.reply TEXT R/O StringRange R/O
faults.99 ALARM R/O AlarmFlagRange R/O (Communication)
faults.commstat TEXT R/O StringRange R/O
info.type TEXT R/O StringRange R/O
info.port TEXT R/O StringRange R/O
info.frame TEXT R/O StringRange R/O
info.powermeterReply TEXT R/O StringRange R/O
config.displayMode CHOICE SETUP EnumRange (Watt dB(Rel) dB(Ref) dBm)
config.calFactor CHOICE SAVE SETUP EnumRange (ENABLED DISABLED)
power FLOAT R/O DoubleRange R/O (0.000 .. 0.000)
range CHOICE EnumRange (1 2 3 4 5 AUTO)
zero TEXT NOPRESET StringRange
state.autoZero BOOLEAN R/O BooleanRange R/O (true false)
state.range CHOICE R/O EnumRange R/O (1 2 3 4 5)
initalize TEXT R/O StringRange R/O
internal.mantissa INTEGER R/O IntegerRange R/O (0 .. 0)
internal.exponent INTEGER R/O IntegerRange R/O (0 .. 0)
faults.01 ALARM R/O AlarmFlagRange R/O (Invalid Measurement)
faults.02 ALARM R/O AlarmFlagRange R/O (Under Range)
faults.03 ALARM R/O AlarmFlagRange R/O (Over Range)