I just got my PSGU1000 today and let me first say I am very impressed! I had been using a Wavetek 288 for many years to generate the signals and sweeps needed for my work, it died a week or so back (the smoke came out of fluorescent display drive chip) and I made the decision to get the PSGU1000–I and not disappointed.
An issue however is that the FGU.exe application will not actually control the PSGU1000. In the VB6 demo FGU.exe will load and the status indicator thinks it’s connected to the generator, however it isn’t. Both the demo app and FGU.exe go through the motions and look like they are working, however the instrument does not produce any output.
PCLab2000SE works fine, as does a direct launch of PCSU1000GU.exe.
The USB/COM connection is recognised as COM3,
The serial number of my unit is 200701142 if that is of any assistance. I have v3.08 of PCLab2000 installed.
Any help/comment would be appreciated…
PS: This is a neat unit–I captured some pulses with my LeCroy 322, saved the to a CSV file, then manipulated the values so as to be in a -1.0 to 1.0 range and saved it as a “lib” file–the result was virtually undistinguishable from the original pulse.
Nice that you like the PCGU1000 !
I think you are running the new DLL from the link found from this Forum?
If this is the case - this is the solution:
There are some features added to the new DLL and it doesn’t run correctly with the old VB6 demo.
Now the Visual Basic 6.0 demo is updated. You may download it from: vel255.diinoweb.com/files/FGULink_VB6_demo.zip
Extract the files to new folder.
Please copy the FGULINK.DLL to Windows system32 folder too.
There are added following functions:
OpenGen - to run the FGU.EXE from within your application
CloseGen - to close the FGU.EXE
GenStatus - to get info about the generator status
ShowGen - to show or hide the generator’s user interface
AttOn - to put the 40dB attenuator on or off
In the demo software click “Turn On Generator” button first
When you start FGU.exe from the demo program or from your application, the new GenStatus() function returns 0 until the “Loading” period of the generator is complete. After that period of time the GenStatus() function returns value 1 if everything OK. It returns -1 if the USB connection fails (cable disconnected) and -2 if the power adaptor is disconnected.
The original GenReady() function returns “Fail” if any of those failures occur. You may use either GenReady() or GenStatus() or both to check the generator’s operation status.
GenReady() and GenStatus() functions return the generator status about 1.5 seconds after every instruction sent to the generator. The previous generator state is returned until that if no instruction is sent. Please allow in your application for the generator that amount of time after the instruction to update the status using GenReady() and GenStatus() functions.
GenReady() will return 0 if you close the program manually without CloseGen().
Use Showgen(false) to hide the generator GUI.
The software remembers the ShowGen status next time.
In the FGen1000.ini there is now a parameter ShowGen=1. Change it to ShowGen=0 and the generator GUI will be always hidden.
I had seen your posting similar to that above in another thread last evening, and had downloaded the latest version of the demo–it was that with which I noted the issues raised in my initial posting. Just to be certain however I downloaded the packaged again just now, and compiled and ran both the VB6 and Delphi demos with the same results (I.e. PCLab2k works fine however the FGULink.dll, FGU.exe, and demo programs just went through the motions without actually waking up the PCGU1000).
Then it occured to me that I had “updated” to 5.2.2.0 drivers before attempting to use the FGULink.dll. So on chance I uninstalled the drivers, made sure the registry settings for COM ports and USB devices contained only what I needed, reset the COM port bitmap, and loaded the 4.40.1.0 drivers.
That did it…
It would appear that the 5.2.2.0 drivers are compatible with PCLab2000SE v3.08 but not with the FGULink.dll and FGU.exe. BTW, the PCGU1000Link.dll and demo do work with the 5.2.2.0 drivers, and also with the 4.40.1.0 drivers.
I also observed that the 4.40.1.0 package loads two devices, a PCGO1000 COM Port (COMn) and a USB controller device PCGO1000 Function Generator. The 5.2.2.0 package only loads the COM port driver.
This is a very nice instrument, I look forward to doing some real work with it. I am going to run some THD, and amplitude and frequency accuracy measurements tonight–everything is warming up now. I’ll post the results when available.
Sorry about the problems you encountered due to the drivers/software incompatibility.
Actually the new driver 5.2.2.0 is made to get the generator working with 64 bit operating systems too.
There are some differences in the driver loading procedure as you noted. One big difference is the way how the new driver stores the COM port address to the registry. Due to this difference, the new driver needs completely new generator software too. The software (version is 3.062) for the driver 5.2.2.0 is in the package: vel255.diinoweb.com/files/PCSU10 … _v5220.zip
I think you downloaded this package too and got the PcLab2000SE running with the new driver…
The latest software v3.08 and also FGU.exe should not run with the driver 5.2.2.0.
The only solution is - as you noted - to re-install the original driver.