Streaming 16 Bit Transfers Using the NI-USB-8451.
Hardware: Industrial Communications>>CAN
Problem: I have a National Instruments USB-8451 I2C/SPI device and need to perform streaming for 16 bit transfers. Is this possible?
Solution:
The USB-8451 only supports 8 bit transfers. You can still write a 16 bit number, but there will be a small delay between the 2 bytes (approximately 10-20 us). This is a small delay and is typically not a limiting factor in your program.
The approach you would take when writing or reading a 16 bit number is to write or read a byte array of length 2. You can use a Type Cast to convert back and forth between arrays of 8 bit integers and arrays of 16 bit integers.
Please note that this is a hardware limitation and that writing or reading 16 bit numbers in the method above will affect the performance of streaming programs, slowing them down.
Related Links: Products and Services: NI USB-8451
Attachments:
Report Date: 10/02/2006
Last Updated: 03/31/2009
Document ID: 421F7CC5
