How to use a thermocouple& Arduino with Labview ?

[Adam777]

Hi everryone ,

I'm kind of new to Labview, since it's been only less than 2 weeks that i've been using it. I'm a moroccan first year engineering student, and I have  to make a viva/orals presentation to a jury of teachers. In my project, i chose to build a NELPA Solar cook. Thus, I want to make all the thermic measurments (Water inside the bowl, stainless steel inside the box) with Labview. I would be extremely grateful if I could find any help here concerning the use of a simple thermocouple with an arduino board.

All I have in my arsenal is :

- a thermocouple

- a multimeter with a thermocouple input and a thermocouple entry. The multimeter can display the number of celsius degrees corresponding to the signal it gets.

- an Arduino.

- Would I need something else ?

My questions simply are :

- How to install the Arduino ?

- How to find it in Labview ?

- Is there a way to directly connect the multimeter to the arduino, or should i rather opt to amplifying the signal of the thermocouple and connect it directly to the Arduino board, knowing that the arduino sensitivity may not be sufficient to detect the tiny milli or microvolts that the thermocouple delivers ?

- What should my VI look like ?

Take your shot. All help is welcome. I'd be really thankful.

[Nathan_B.]

For using LabVIEW and LIFA, you can look at the abundant information available for setting it up and using it. However, I highly recommend that you DO NOT use LIFA.  Use LINX instead.  LIFA is no longer supported and was replaced by LINX.

You will not be able to use the Arduino to read the thermocouple directly.  You would need some sort of thermocouple device for amplifying the signal which you could then get the information.  There are some I2C devices out there that make it easy in that you never have to do any analog acquisition.

Connecting a multimeter to LabVIEW is possible only for the type that is designed to do so via USB, GPIB, or some other connection method.

Lastly, look at existing LabVIEW programs to see what a typical program looks like.  There are several examples provided with both LIFA and LINX that you can view.