Best Practices for Using LabVIEW with LXI

I’ve been designing a test system for a customer, and it’s going to be a mix of PXI and LXI instrumentation. Most NI customers understand PXI, but aren’t very familiar with LXI, which is the standard for Ethernet-based instrumentation. Up until about five years ago, I was a member of the LXI Consortium, and closely followed all of its technical developments. For my new project, I’ve been searching the internet so I can catch up and learn about the latest with LXI. While doing so, I realize there’s not a lot out there that discusses how to get started with LXI and LabVIEW (and NI MAX and NI VISA).

Around the same time, a customer asked me to teach the National Instruments “LabVIEW Instrument Control” course, which hasn’t been updated in about ten years. It also doesn’t cover much in the way of Ethernet or USB instrumentation.

So, I felt like I should do something about this dearth of content. I thought a video or two might be the best way to explain how to get started. I asked my friends at the LXI Consortium if anyone could loan me an LXI device, and Keithley Instruments graciously sent me a very nice DMM.

With that DMM on my bench, I created a couple of short videos (attached below). Part one is a good starting point if you’ve never used LXI with LabVIEW before. Part two begins to cover some of the issues if you want to use LXI in a production environment where the system needs to be more robust and maintainable.

For those wanting to learn even more, I’m developing additional custom training to help people who are building LabVIEW-based test systems that include more modern buses like USB and Ethernet. Contact us if you are interested in this custom training.

I’d love to hear your feedback on these videos. Please comment below!