slightlynybbled / subdue

Hardware API for National Instruments cards, Power Supplies, Thermocouple readers, and other physical test hardware

Purpose

This project is intended to bring together lots of different hardware projects into a single unified API to ease hardware test development. Using this project, it should be easier to write a Python-driven hardware test using the old Python favorites. In many ways, this is somewhat equivalent to LabView in functionality, but with all of the advantages of Python. Enjoy!

For more information, be sure to check out the documentation!

Installation Requirements

You will need to have a working installation of Python 3.5 environment to run subdue. Installation of some or all software may require administrative access.

It is recommended that python be added to the PATH and that *.py extensions are associated with python.

Installation Instructions

To install, simply pip install subdue. Note that there are several external dependencies. See the documentation for details.

Examples

Several examples are provided for your convenience within the /examples directory. Simply run the example in your python environment. Note that the examples will require attached hardware, hardware drivers, and may require other packages (such as requests).

Project Maturity

The generic API of this project is expected to change somewhat, but is beginning to firm up. I expect that more instruments will be added as I begin to work with more hardware. The instruments currently populated have been sufficient for most of my test needs at this time.

Contributions

Please use the issues to request support for new hardware. As I likely do not have a set of hardware for development, I may not be able to add functionality to the library with confidence. Pull requests are welcome!

subdue's Issues

Document `get_fundamental_frequency()`

Add 'find fundamental frequency' function

Useful for reading tachometers and other oscillating waveform frequencies

Make API for DAQs more consistent

Currently DAQ pins are accessed like

daq.digital_out('port0', 'line1')
daq.analog_out('ai0')

Unify the API a bit by simply treating the ai like the port0 for a more consistent paradigm:

daq.digital_out('port0', 'line1')
daq.analog_out('ai', '0')

Better `__repr__` string for DAQMx object

Current:

>>> daq = subdue.NIDAQmx()
>>> print(daq)
<subdue.daqmx.NIDAQmx object at 0x10332590>

Prefer:

>>> daq = subdue.NIDAQmx()
>>> print(daq)
Dev1

Document that analog input implies differential measurement

Better searching for DAQ modules

Currently

daq_searcher = subdue.NIDAQmxSearch()
references = daq_searcher.list_references() 

Would probably be better to have a convenience function:

references = subdue.NIDAQmxSearch().find_all()