Text and pictures © 2019-2024 Guillaume Dargaud
Last updated on 2021/11/05
"If I died and went straight to hell, it would take me a week to realize I'm not at work anymore."
The Keithley 6485 pico-ammeter should be a straightforward instrument to program for, as it uses standard SCPI commands over serial, but indeed it has lots of quirks.
Features: Things are kept to a minimum. The only calls are to init the device, read the current and set range and rate, but it should be easy enough to carry on with that. There's a Makefile and 2 test programs, simply run them with -h for help. It communicates via serial port. The code most likely works on similar models, but I haven't tested it.
Limitations: Plenty, in particular pay attention to auto-zero and similar features if you want to do quick readings.
