Programmatically Getting the Backplane Information of RIO Device Family

Updated Dec 29, 2022

Environment

Hardware

  • CompactRIO Chassis

Software

  • LabVIEW

Driver

  • NI-VISA
  • NI-RIO
  • NI-DAQmx

When I expand Devices and Interfaces in MAX and select RIO Device, the Serial Number, Model Name, and Model Code are displayed. How do I programatically get this information?

There are three methods available to programmatically gain information on your hardware: 
  • You can use VISA commands to open a session to your RIO device and return the requested interface information through the VISA Interface Description property found under Interface Information in the VISA property shortcut menu. This method will work as long as your RIO device is discoverable as a VISA resource.
  • You can use another method which follows a more modular design. The picture below allows you to programmatically obtain backplane information of RIO devices in LabVIEW. It uses a special API designed to return interface and other useful information. This alternative may be more attractive for some applications due to the fact that it does not rely on VISA.

 
Note: This image is a LabVIEW snippet, which includes LabVIEW code that you can reuse in your project. To use a snippet, right-click the image, save it to your computer, and drag the file onto your LabVIEW diagram.
  • If you have a 904x or 905x cRIO you can also use the System Configuration VIs in order to retrieve that information. You can use as a guide the example Show All Hardware VI that you can find on Help>>Find Examples.