At work, I am trying to make some automated test equipment, (I also have some personal test equipment to automate as well).
At work I use MS Windows 10 for my laptop, home I use macOS, and for embedded test equipment I am planning on using Raspberry Pi and Pi touch screens for driving the systems.
Looking for software to give me a front end for virtual instruments, the go-to software is National Instrument’s LabVIEW, however, LabVIEW is expensive, and requires licencing, looking for alternatives to LabVIEW I came across two promising looking projects, PyLab_Works and MyOpenLab.
PyLab_Works has not been updated since 2015, and it is safe to assume is abandoned due to the main project website being offline, and the aforementioned lack of updates.
MyOpenLab is still showing as possibly under development however is written in Java but requires an older version of Java, I have it running under Java 8 on macOS.
The first thing you will need to do is download MyOpenLab from their website (annoyingly it is mostly in Spanish1), the direct page is ‘Descargar‘, the most up to date version at the time of writing this post is v3.11.0, it is available for Windows, Mac, and Linux; with the Linux and macOS version being the same download.
Once you have downloaded MyOpenLab, unzip it, and put it in a location you are happy with, make sure you have Java 8 from Oracle2.
cd Documents/Projects/MyOpenLab
chmod +x start_linux
./start_linux
I am going to test this using an Arduino UNO and the Firmata firmware:
MyOpenLab Main Screen File > New Project Name the Project
Firmata is an easy way to make a computer talk to a microcontroller:
Firmata is a protocol for communicating with microcontrollers from software on a computer. The protocol can be implemented in firmware on any microcontroller architecture as well as software on any computer software package.
Firmata is based on the midi message format in that commands bytes are 8 bits and data bytes are 7 bits
Firmata
Using the Arduino IDE, open the code with the menu “File » Examples » Firmata » Standard Firmata” menu, and then upload it to your Uno.
Arduino IDE Splash Arduino Firmata Code Arduino Firmata Compiling
Back to MyOpenLab
Open the project Open Circuit Panel Interfaces Button Interfaces Menu Firmata Button
I will put this to bed at the moment; and come back to it at a later date
- They also do the ridiculous thing of breaking selections and right-clicking
- You will need to login to download, however, there is a list of working username and passwords on BugMeNot
