A Tutorial on the Use of GPIB and Spreadsheet Software Macros for Data Acquisition in the Evaluation of Photovoltaic Device Performance
Scott K. Johnson · 2003
We present a lightweight and straightforward way to automate data acquisition (DAQ). This approach uses a general purpose interface board (GPIB) and software with GPIB-compatible devices (i.e., multimeters, electronic loads, etc) and Microsoft Excel to capture data. (Devices with a GPIB hardware interface are equivalent to the HPIB and IEEE-488 hardware interfaces.) One can centrally control several devices automatically for the purpose of data acquisition and/or experiment control. This method is a cheap alternative to expensive software and hardware (i.e., LabVIEW(TradeMark), AID data acquisition boards, etc.), although certain considerations should be taken into account when considering your hardware and software requirements (see Appendix A- 1). The following works well for simple experiments and we give an example that generates IV (i.e., current-to-voltage) curve data for a solar cell.