Scanning and Discovery

The first step in any automation task is finding your hardware. The Instrumation CLI provides a unified way to see everything connected to your system.

The Scan Command

Run the following to poll all VISA backends (NI-VISA, Keysight, pyvisa-py) and Serial ports:

instrumation scan

Understanding the Output

The output is grouped by connection type: - USB: LXI and USBTMC instruments. - TCPIP: Ethernet-connected instruments. - GPIB: Traditional bus instruments. - Serial: COM ports (often used for TDK-Lambda or Arduino-based controllers).

Checking an Identity

If you know the address but want to verify the instrument type and model, use the get_id method:

instrumation measure "USB0::0x2A8D::0x0101::MY123456::0::INSTR" DMM get_id

This sends a *IDN? query and parses the manufacturer, model, and serial number.