Benches: web front panels for GPIB instruments

Web front panels

GPIBEE Benches

A bench is a browser front panel for one instrument, clicked together in the GPIBEE web interface and stored on the adapter itself. No software to install, no code to write. This page shows what they look like and gives you a few ready-made ones to import.

Before you start

Benches arrived in firmware V1.6. If your GPIBEE is on an older build, update it from the Firmware Updates page first. The Benches tutorial walks through building one from an empty page with an HP 34401A as the example, and the announcement article covers what the feature is for.

A bench is a front panel, not a test program.It is built for driving an instrument by hand and watching what it does. For unattended sequences, sweeps and timing-critical work, use VXI-11 or USB from a real program. See the PyVISA tutorial.

Examples

What a bench looks like

Click the screenshot to enlarge it.

A GPIBee bench for a laboratory power supply showing live output voltage and current with trend lines, a red Control card with an output on-off switch and voltage and current setpoints, and a grey Readback card confirming the output state

A laboratory supply. Output on and off, voltage and current setpoints, and live readback of what the supply is actually delivering. Cards can be coloured, so the controls that change the world get to look like it.

Downloads

Ready-made and example benches

Import any of these into your own GPIBEE and you have a working front panel in about ten seconds.

How to import one

Download the .gpibee file above.
Open the GPIBEE web interface and go to Benches in the sidebar.
Press import / restore and pick the file. The bench appears in the selector.
Open edit and set the GPIB address to the address your instrument actually uses. That is the one setting these files cannot get right for you.

Keep a copy.Benches are stored on the adapter. While the format is still settling, keep a downloaded copy of any bench you would not want to lose, and use backup all on the Benches page before a firmware update.

Curious about the file format?A bench is a JSON document, optionally gzip compressed. The files on this page are the compressed kind, so unpack one with gzip and the whole definition is readable in any text editor. Do not build anything on top of it yet: while Benches is in beta the format can still change, so treat what you see inside as a snapshot rather than a specification.

Built one worth sharing?Send it in through the contact and support page and it can go on this page for everybody else with that instrument.