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<< Click to Display Table of Contents >> Virtual and Offline Instruments |
  
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<< Click to Display Table of Contents >> Virtual and Offline Instruments |
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Virtual and Offline instruments are a way to have one or more instruments in the Variables List that do not make real requests over comms.
Use Offline instruments where:
| • | An instrument has been decommissioned permanently. This allows log file conversion and Historical Replay to still work on this instrument without deleting it from the Variables List. |
| • | An instrument is temporarily offline and will return to service some time later. This stops SpecView reporting error codes while the instrument is unavailable. |
Use Virtual Instruments where:
| • | A Recipe Send-To scheme is implemented such that the Virtual instrument is used as the source of the recipe that can then be sent-to the real instrument(s). This eliminates the chance of an accidental download of a recipe to the source instrument because Virtual instruments cannot be written to. |
Offline instrument values appear on screen as 'O/L' and Virtual instruments appear as 'Virt'.
These indications can be changed in SV3.INI in the [Settings] section:
OfflineValue=(O/L)
VirtualValue=Virt
IMPORTANT: To set an instrument to Offline it is necessary to be in Edit Mode Offline (or from Edit Mode, go to the Online Features menu and choose Disable All).
To change a real instrument into an Offline one, first go into Edit Mode Offline and open the Variables List, select the Properties of the instrument and then in the Com Port drop-down box, at the very top of the list (above TCP/IP) is Offline.
To make an instrument Virtual, the same procedure as above is used, except select Virtual instead of Offline.
It is possible to move all instruments on a given COM port to Offline or Virtual by using Swap COM Ports from the Setup menu while in Edit Mode Offline.
However, using Swap COM Ports to swap to Offline/Virtual will change *all* the instruments on that COM port to Offline/Virtual.
In addition if instruments connected to more than one COM port have been set to Offline/Virtual then it is necessary to consider whether to use
Swap COM Ports to change from Offline/Virtual because they won't necessarily be assigned back to their original COM ports.
Virtual Instruments can be setup when they are created by choosing the Virtual port instead of a real port when the instrument is created from the Templates list.