Integrating data from Dracal Virtual COM sensors in LabVIEW via Wi-Fi & Ethernet using SensGate

Dracal Technologies’ USB sensors and instruments offer a simple and dependable solution for accurate environmental measurements, easily integrating with your existing system. For enhanced accuracy, an optional user-calibration feature allows customization to meet your specific needs. Additionally, the Virtual COM protocol option ensures smooth integration across various platforms, providing versatile data communication capabilities. Our durable USB sensors are accompanied by free, user-friendly USB DAQ software for visualization and logging, along with a full set of code examples to facilitate fast integration with platforms like LabVIEW, Python, C++, and others.

Step 1. Get your equipment

You will need the following elements:

• 1 X PC (Windows, Mac or Linux) with LabVIEW installed
• 1 X Dracal USB sensor equiped with the VCP option (product code = VCP-…)
• 1 X SensGate

Step 2. Download the free DracalView software & tools

Download our free USB DAQ (Windows, Mac, Linux), which includes the DracalView graphical interface and interfacing tools. When you receive your Dracal USB sensor, you’ll be able to get to work straight away, using the DracalView GUI to quickly visualize your temperature and relative humidity measurements. For calibratable models, calibration can also be performed intuitively with DracalView.

Step 3. Switch your sensor to Virtual COM mode

* For more information on VCP, consult the complete VCP documentation.

Switch your device from USB to VCP mode (Dracal sensors are all delivered in USB mode). Step 3 of this documentation will explain you in details how to do this, depending on your OS.

Step 4. Connect the SensGate to your network

Step-by-step procedure to connect your SensGate to an existing network here. If you prefer to create your own sub-network for your project, follow this step.

Step 5. Download and run your ready-made LabVIEW model

Download and run the model:

 Dracal_VCP_WiFi&Ethernet_Model.vi 

You instrument is communicating via a virtual serial port. In the model, the VISA (Virtual Instrument Software Architecture) functions built into LabVIEW make the integration straightforward, facilitating direct read/write commands to the sensor. Dracal’s REST API RVCP enables direct access to your sensor data via an HTTP block.

This model is presented as an example and can easily be simplified. The final visualization elements are practical to start with, but are not necessary in an automation context. What’s more, the model includes visualization of the 3 real channels available for the all-in-one sensor that has been used to generate the example (a PTH450). If your product measures a different number of parameters, simply adjust the final number of outputs in the model to match the number of outputs in your product.

Checksum management, which is more complex to handle, has been deliberately left out to make the model as easy to digest as possible for a first implementation.

Here are the block diagram and front panel of the completed model:

Block Diagram

Front Panel

Conclusion

Integrating environmental data wirelessly or via ethernet to your LabVIEW set-up is a matter of minutes with Dracal. With the Virtual COM option (VCP), you can leverage your existing serial code base to go Wi-Fi, simply, and without the need of your IT team. This is a solution for output-driven teams for which reliability and time are critical.