Monday, February 1, 2010

Fluke 189/289 DMM - Connect To Computer

Some of multimeters as Fluke 189 or 289, for instance, can be connected to a computer. That allows easily to setup communication with such a device and automate measurements. Fluke 189/289 needs Fluke IR189USB cable for that. While it is USB port physical connection it's represented as a serial COM port on operating system level.

Has to be mentioned that Fluke provides its own software to communicate with the DMMs: FlukeView Forms. Nevertheless due to simplicity of the interface connection can be easily controlled from available in Windows HyperTerminal, for example, or from a simple custom program or script. The detailed list of commands and parameters of the communication protocol can be found here.

To set it up:
  1. Install drivers for corresponding operating system. FTDI USB chip is used in the cable, a corresponding driver is available for downloading from here.

  2. Connect a Fluke 189/289 to a computer USB port.

  3. Check what port number was assigned for the Fluke multimeter: Start/MyComputer/Properties/Hardware/Device Manager/Ports

  4. Open a serial terminal program, for example, Hyperterminal in Windows, choose the port and setup parameters of the connection as 9600 baud, 8 bits, no parity, 1 stop bit.

  5. Send commands and read responses:


Reading a currently measured value is done by sending out Query Measurement "QM" command. Identification "ID" command can be used to find automatically that port which Fluke DMM was assigned to.
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2 comments:

  1. AnonymousOctober 7, 2010 at 12:44 PM

    So,
    I have Fluke 289 and I don't see any text from multimeter. I'm trying with your settings and from this doc: http://forums.ni.com/ni/attachments/ni/140/40444/1/remote_spec28X.doc.
    I think my connection is OK, because I can read data from fuke by FlukeView Forms.

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  2. SVNOctober 10, 2010 at 10:26 PM

    Hi, sorry, I'm traveling right now and cannot respond quickly.

    I had the communication working with 9600 baud, 8 bits, no parity, 1 stop bit - that's by sure. I used Fluke 289 too - I don't remember any problems. Here are the settings in Python:
    s = serial.Serial(i, baudrate=9600, bytesize=8, parity='N', stopbits=1, timeout=1, xonxoff=0, rtscts=0, dsrdtr=0)
    Hyperterminal is easier to start with, but
    You may need to play with handshake parameter (NONE should be OK).

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