Connecting Arduino To Daqfactory

[Ledl]

I've a very basic question concerning the use of an arduino in combination with DAQFactory. I've an Arduino Mega 2560 connected to the computer via USB, but I don't know how to configure it to be able to control it with DAQFactory. 

I tried "Quick->Device configuration->New serial..." in DAQFactory. There, I defined the serial port configuration parameters (COM3, baud 9600, etc.) and as a protocol I selected "Null protocol". But, it didn't work. Do I have to download a Modbus protocol for the Arduino? Or, what else do I have to do?

 

In a first step, I would simply like to acquire data from sensors connected to an Arduino. 

 

[AzeoTech]

An arduino is just another computer.  Its not a DAQ device.  So you can't just plug it into a PC and expect software on the PC to communicate with it.  You have several issues:

 

1) are you sure the USB connection from the arduino is showing up as a virtual comm port 3?

2) what protocol is on the arduino side of the system?  Then you'll know what should be on the DAQFactory side.  If it mounts as a virtual comm port on the arduino side, then you have to figure out what software is servicing that port and what protocol it runs.

[SteveMyres]

And yes, I believe there are downloadable Arduino Modbus libraries.   If it's fairly easy to get Modbus running on the Arduino, I think that approach would be preferable to implementing a custom protocol in DAQ Factory.

 

Even if there are no ready-made libraries, I still would rather implement an industry-standard protocol like Modbus on the Arduino side than something Arduino-specific on the DF side (and Modbus is easy to implement besides).