pymodaq_plugins_daqmx (National Instrument DAQmx)

Plugins devoted to National Instruments signal acquisition and generation, using the NI-DAQmx driver through the nidaqmx package of National Instruments (documentation). They include a NIDAQmx actuator for signal generation, a 0D viewer for quick measurements and a 1D viewer for data acquisition as a function of time, and the NIDAQmx object (hardware/national_instruments/daqmxni.py) to build your own plugin on.

Authors

• Sébastien J. Weber

Contributors

• Amelie Jarnac
• Aurore Finco
• Sébastien Guerrero (sebastien.guerrero@insa-lyon.fr)
• Cyril Auclair (cyril.auclair@insa-lyon.fr)

Instruments

Below is the list of instruments included in this plugin

Actuators

• NIDAQmx: General generation (voltage / current) with National Instrument materials

Viewer0D

• NIDAQmx: General measurement with National Instrument materials (one value per channel and per acquisition)

Viewer1D

• NIDAQmx: General measurement with National Instrument materials, acquired in the hardware buffer

Documentation

Refer to the documentation to use this plugin or discover its functionalities.

Difference with the pydaqmx branch

The repository has two lines of plugins, which use two different Python interfaces to the same NI-DAQmx driver. They do not share their instrument plugins (NIDAQmx here, DAQmx_... there).

	5.3.x branch (this one)	pydaqmx branch
Python interface	nidaqmx, the package of National Instruments (NIDAQmx object in daqmxni.py)	PyDAQmx (DAQmx object in hardware/national_instruments/daqmx.py)
Instruments	NIDAQmx actuator, 0D viewer and 1D viewer	generic DAQmx actuator and viewers (0D, 1D), DAQmxAI, DAQmxDualAI, DAQmx_PLcounter, DAQmx_ScannerControl, DAQmx_MultipleScannerControl
Use	measurement of voltage, current or temperature with a general viewer, whose channels can be loaded from a configuration file of the user (config_daqmx.toml) and saved from the interface	specific tasks (photon counting, piezo scanner control, analog input) and a base to write your own plugin
State	the NIDAQmx viewers were tested with a cDAQ-9174 and a USB-6341 (modules NI-9205, NI-9211, NI-9217); the NIDAQmx actuator is not finished yet (its movements still raise NotImplementedError)	the PyDAQmx based plugins, kept as they are

This branch still contains the PyDAQmx based DAQmx object and the user guides of the photon counter and the scanner control, but not the instrument plugins of the pydaqmx branch: use that branch if you need them.

Requirements

• PyMoDAQ >= 5.3.7
• the NI-DAQmx driver of National Instruments, installed on the computer connected to the device (use NI MAX to test your hardware). Where the driver cannot be found, the modules of this plugin are not usable and PyMoDAQ skips them.
• the nidaqmx and pydaqmx Python packages, installed with the plugin.