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PROGRAMMING GUIDE
GPIB DC POWER SUPPLIES
Agilent Technologies Models
664xA, 665xA, 667xA, 668xA, and 669xA
Agilent Part No. 5964-8269 Printed in Malaysia
Microfiche Part No. 5964-8270 July, 2001
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Safety Guidelines The beginning of the power supply Operating Manual has a Safety Summary page. Be sure you are familiar with the information on that page before programming the power supply for operation from a controller. ENERGY HAZARD. Power supplies with high output currents (such as the Series 668xA/669xA) can provide more than 240 VA at more than 2 V. If the output connections touch, severe arcing may occur resulting in burns, ignition or welding of parts. Take proper precautions before
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Contents Safety Guidelines 2 Printing History 2 Contents 3 GENERAL INFORMATION 7 About this Guide 7 Documentation Summary 7 User’s Guide 7 External Documents 7 Prerequisites for Using this Guide 8 VXIplug&play Power Product Instrument Drivers 8 Downloading and Installing the Driver 8 Accessing Online Help 8 REMOTE PROGRAMMING 9 GPIB Capabilities Of The Power Supply 9 Introduction To SCPI 9 Conventions 9 SCPI Messages 10 Types of SCPI Commands 10 Structure of a SCPI Message 10 Parts of a SCPI Mes
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*OPC 28 *OPC? 29 *OPT? 29 *PSC 29 *RCL 30 *RST 31 *SAV 31 *SRE 32 *STB? 32 *TRG 33 *TST? 33 *WAI 33 Description of Subsystem Commands 34 ABOR 34 Calibration Commands 34 Current Subsystem 35 CURR 35 CURR:TRIG 35 CURR:PROT:STAT 35 DIG:DATA 36 Display Subsystem 36 DISP 36 DISP:MODE 37 DISP:TEXT 37 Initiate Subsystem 38 INIT 38 INIT:CONT 38 Measure Subsystem 38 MEAS:CURR? 38 MEAS:VOLT? 38 Output Subsystem 39 OUTP 39 OUTP:PROT:CLE 39 OUTP:PROT:DEL 39 OUTP:REL 40 OUTP:REL:POL 40 Status Subsystem 41 ST
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TRIG 45 TRIG:SOUR 46 Voltage Subsystem 46 VOLT 46 VOLT:TRIG 46 VOLT:PROT 47 Command Summary 47 Programming Parameters 49 STATUS REPORTING 51 Power Supply Status Structure 51 Operation Status Group 51 Register Functions 51 Register Commands 51 Questionable Status Group 53 Register Functions 53 Register Commands 53 Standard Event Status Group 53 Register Functions 53 Register Commands 53 Status Byte Register 54 The RQS Bit 54 The MSS Bit 54 Determining the Cause of a Service Interrupt 54 Service R
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1 General Information About this Guide This guide provides remote programming information for the following series of GPIB programmable power supplies: • AGILENT Series 664xA, 665xA, 667xA, 668xA, and 669xA You will find the following information in the rest of this guide: Chapter 2 Introduction to SCPI messages structure, syntax, and data formats. Examples of SCPI programs. Chapter 3 Dictionary of SCPI commands. Table of programming parameters. Chapter 4 Description of the status regist
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Prerequisites for Using this Guide This organization of this guide assumes that you know or can learn the following information: 1. How to program in your controller language (Agilent BASIC, QUICKBASIC, C, etc.). 2. The basics of the GPIB (IEEE 488). 3. How to program I/O statements for an IEEE 488 bus instrument. From a programming aspect, the power supply is simply a bus instrument. 4. How to format ASCII statements within you I/O programming statements. SCPI commands are nothing more than A
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2 Remote Programming GPIB Capabilities Of The Power Supply All power supply functions except for setting the GPIB address are programmable over the IEEE 488 bus (also known as the General Purpose Interface Bus or "GPIB"). The IEEE 488.1 capabilities of the power supply are listed in the Supplemental Characteristics of the Operating Guide. The power supply operates from a GPIB address that is set from the front panel (see System Considerations at the end of this chapter). Introduction To SCPI l
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SCPI Messages There are two types of SCPI messages, program and response. • A program message consists of one or more properly formatted SCPI commands sent from the controller to the power supply. The message, which may be sent at any time, requests the power supply to perform some action. • A response message consists of data in a specific SCPI format sent from the power supply to the controller. The power supply sends the message only when commanded by a special program message called a "quer
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F igure 2-1. Command Message Structure T he basic parts of the message in Figure 2-1 are: Message Component Example H eaders VOL T LEV PROT CURR Header Separator The colon in VOLT:LEV Data 4.5 4.8 D ata Separator The space in VOLT 4. 5 and PROT 4. 8 Message Units VOL T:LEV 4.5 PROT 4.8 CURR? M essage Unit Separator The semicolons in VOLT: LEV 4. 5; and PROT 4. 8; Ro ot Specifier The colon in PROT 4. 8; : CURR? Query Indicator The question mark in CURR? Message Terminator Th
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Header Convention. In this manual, headers are emphasized with boldface type. The proper short form is shown in upper-case letters, such as DELay. Header Separator. If a command has more than one header, you must separate them with a colon. (VOLT:PROT OUTPut:PROTection:CLEar) O ptional Headers. The use of some headers is optional. Optional headers are shown in brackets, such as OUTPut[:STATe] ON. However, if you combine two or more message units into a compound message, you may need
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Figure 2-2. Partial Command Tree Active Header Path In order to properly traverse the command tree, you must understand the concept of the active header path. When the power supply is turned on (or under any of the other conditions listed above), the active path is at the root. That means the interface is ready to accept any command at the root level, such as TRIGger or STATus in Figure 2-2. Note that you do not have to precede either command with a colon; there is an implied colon in
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Note The SCPI parser traverses the command tree as described in Appendix A of the IEEE 488.2 standard. The "Enhanced Tree Walking Implementation" given in that appendix is not implemented in the power supply. The following message shows how to combine commands from different subsystems as well as within the same subsystem (see Figure 3-2): VOL TAGE:LEVEL 7;PROTECTION 8;:CURRENT:LEVEL 50;PROTECTION ON No te the use of the optional header LEVEL to maintain the correct path within the vol
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Listening Formats Extended format that includes , and . Examples: 273 273. 2.73E2 Expanded decimal format that includes , MIN and MAX. Examples: 273 273. 2.73E2 MAX. MIN and MAX are the minimum and maximum limit values that are implicit in the range specification for the parameter. T able 2-2. Suffixes and Multipliers Class S uffix Unit Unit with Multiplier Current A Am pere MA (milliampere) Amplitude V Vo lt MV (m illivolt) Ti me S second MS
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Controlling the Output Important The power supply responds simultaneously to both digital and analog programming inputs. If it is receiving an input over the GPIB and a corresponding input from the front panel (and/or from the analog programming port), the power supply output will be the algebraic sum of the inputs. P rogramming Voltage and Current The following statements program both voltage and current and return the actual output from the sense terminals: OUTP OFF Disable the output. V
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Saving and Recalling States You can remotely save and recall operating states. See *SAV and *RCL in "Chapter 3 - Language Dictionary" for the parameters that are saved and recalled. Note When you turn the power supply on, it automatically retrieves the state stored in location 0. When a power supply is delivered, this location contains the factory defaults (see *RST in "Chapter 3 - Language Dictionary"). OU TP OFF;VOLT:LEV 6.5;PROT 6.8 Pr ogram a desired operating state. CURR:LEV 335;PROT
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Note The last query string can be handled without difficulty. However, should you request too many queries, the system may return a "Query DEADLOCKED” error (-430). In that case, break the long string into smaller parts. Programming the Digital I/O Port D igital control ports 1 and 2 are TTL outputs that can be programmed either high or low. Control port 3 can be programmed to be either a TTL input or a TTL output. Send a decimal parameter that translates into the desired straight binary cod
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Action Display Shows P ress Current address Press new address keys New address replaces numbers on the display P ress Display returns to meter mode If you try to enter a forbidden number, ADDR ERROR is displayed. The following examples show how to set addresses: T o set stand-along primary address 6, press To set direct supply primary address 6, press To set linked secondary address 1, press To set linked secondary address 12, press Note The power supply display will reset
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DOS Drivers Types of Drivers The Agilent 82335A and National Instruments GP-IB are two popular DOS drivers. Each is briefly described here. See the software documentation supplied with the driver for more details. Agilent 82335A Driver. For GW-BASIC programming, the GPIB library is implemented as a series of subroutine calls. To access these subroutines, your application program must include the header file SETUP.BAS, which is part of the DOS driver software. SETUP.BAS starts at program line
