Download Interaction between Keithley 6485 pico-ammeter and the

Interaction between Keithley
6485 pico-ammeter and the PC
through LabView
By
Shahab Khan
Development Process
• Learned some LabView and SCPI language
• Wrote Program with help of examples
• Had a lot of problems getting the program
to read non-zero values from the 6485
• With much help from the Keithley and
National Instruments Technicians, finally
got it to work
Experimental setup to test 6485
• Function Generator, settings:
frequency~.5mhz ; max voltage ~ 5V
• 8.6 Mega Ohm Resistor
• Made simple circuit with 6485 probe
• Should observe alternating current in the
micro Ampere range
Controls
• Toggle Auto Range
• Set Manual Range (faster if manually set
range)
• Set wait time between subsequent
measurements
• Set a background current value to subtract
from all the readings
Readings
• Chart to observe the measurements
• Numerical indicator to read last
measurement
• Number of Readings Indicator
• Data Analysis after data acquisition:
• Mean, standard deviation, variance, etc
• Option to save current readings into a
spreadsheet
Future
• Need to fine tune program to our specific
experimental setup
• Help Setup PMT, tower of cells, and rest of
setup; then start taking data
• Possibly acquire Read-back mechanism of
xyz position, then configure that with
LabView