Introduction:
In my previously work I work as repair technician / developer technician. I repaired a lot of high-value product. I always tried to help my work as time is money and while my scripts / solutions works, I could work an another project (like PXE-boot technology, or build a debug environment for an another problem & like these ).
The problem:
To detect the reason of problem with product, I always spent a lot of time to search for log, what was generated by test-sytem. The following things made me a lot of trouble 🙂 :
- I always worked in parallel mode. I watched & I need more log in the same time.
- One test-system could test more DUT (Device Under Test, so product what I repaired).
- I not always had local access for test-system. It was used in another place, or in temperature-controlled room.
- These test-systems was shared between Engineering / Development / Manufacturing / Calibration / Test-Station support / repair technicians.
- The generated log-files was shipped out from temporaly network storage after 30min. So If I left it, I must to wait ~2 or ~3 hour util it was appeared on data-warehouse OR I re-test it.
The solution:
I need the tool which collect these files, so I made an application with LabVIEW (08 & 2012). Here is the description of it:
Data Digging (copy it) tool.
It was maded for monitoring and copying created XML log files from “Datalog path” to “save path”.
It start to inspeact files, when we had a modification on “Datalog path”, and of course, in the first run.
It also had some features for effeciently usage, like:
–>Pass / Fail shorting (open the actual xml file, and search for the result of it)
–>File size shorting (Copy to “above size” or “Under size” folder files, which meet “one of the Search Expression)
–>Monitor Free Test Station or IP-address (ping these address and show us that it is on network, or not)
This VI was created to help debug technicians, for PXIe-****’s (********-**L) log file copy. We must to have this tool, because in one time, we have parallel mode (6 DUT / test station), on 6 test station with continously testing, and intime log-file creating, which log-files will be delete periodically (20min). Without these log-files, we will not know the real failure and test limits, the Debug TAGs, what we had in printed form for each DUT is not valuable!
The main line was these functions, and the focus was the log-file copying and analysing, but this tool also usable for evey kind of file shorting and copying (for example, you can use it to copy all JPG file, or all file, which’s name contain for example “dsc” or what you add on Search Expressions).
!IMPORTANT!
–>Now, this VI is NOT supported to inspect sub-folders, because for the main-job (copy log-files) it is not needed.
–>If you have an error, when you use “Monitor TS Status?”, please remember, that it will be showable after TS-check time elapsed.
If you have any feedback, just let me know:
petermikaczo@gmail.com
To execute it, you must to have at least LabVIEW 2012 runtime-engine. If you can open it, the VI can be converted to LabVIEW 8 format (more compatibility). This source-VI can be complied into exe. I also leaved it opened, so you can see & edit it as your need.
Here is the VI: