Microsoft Excel is a popular spreadsheet software used by professionals in every field from finance to biology. The program is used to analyze data, among other tasks. National Instruments' LabVIEW is one of the leading tool kits for data collection, sensor management and other laboratory experiment automation. By using Excel and LabVIEW in concert, you can improve your overall work flow and make both recording and analysis a breeze.
Instructions
1. Create a new virtual instrument (VI) in LabVIEW, or open an existing one.
Instructions
1. Create a new virtual instrument (VI) in LabVIEW, or open an existing one.
2. Add your sensors to the VI. You can also add any other elements you want; they will run simultaneously with the spreadsheet export.
If you don't know what sensors you'll be using yet, you can test out your Excel integration by using a clock as the "sensor". To do this, go to the Functions window, expand the Utilities palette, and drag the Clock element into the main LabVIEW window.
3. Go to the Functions window, and expand the File I/O palette. Drag the "Write To Spreadsheet File" element into the main LabVIEW window near your sensor(s).
If you don't know what sensors you'll be using yet, you can test out your Excel integration by using a clock as the "sensor". To do this, go to the Functions window, expand the Utilities palette, and drag the Clock element into the main LabVIEW window.
3. Go to the Functions window, and expand the File I/O palette. Drag the "Write To Spreadsheet File" element into the main LabVIEW window near your sensor(s).
4. Go to the Tools menu and click "Connect Wire," which is the left-center button in the main block of 9 tools and has an icon that looks like a spool of wire. This will turn your mouse cursor into a wiring tool. Click on the sensor whose output you want to put in your spreadsheet, and drag the wiring tool onto the "Write To Spreadsheet File" element; release your mouse button. This will connect the output of the sensor to the input of the "Write To Spreadsheet File" element.
5. Drag a Path element out of the File I/O palette in the Functions window, if you would like to set a fixed location for the spreadsheet file to be saved. Connect it using the wiring tool (see Step 4). Double-click your Path element and enter the path where you would like to save the file. If you omit this step, LabVIEW will ask you where to save the spreadsheet each time you run the VI.
6. Run your VI. It will save your data to the Excel file you chose in Step 5.
7. Open the spreadsheet file in Excel. You can now use all the normal Excel data analysis tools on your sensor readouts.
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