No, I con’t expect folks to program LabVIEW when they need diagnostics. You are correct in that they need to run something pre-existing. You have no idea how many step by step instruct the technician applications I have written in LabVIEW, and also how many countless dollars lined my bank accounts as a result.
Matching diagnostic capability of something like Actron is about 1/2 day programming job, provided you have all the data assembled to decipher the returned bits from the car in question.
I would have to look deeper into the software suite that costs all that money to see how long that would take to tackle a genre of auto in LV. But I sense that there will be a faction at DMS who just wants that software. OK, I"m cool with that. I need the info embedded in that software for my purposes, so I’m cool with that. I want to make $, and this is powerful entry point in automotive, and the look of those pricetages tells me there is enry potential at this very point. So my interest and DMS user’s interest may not coincide.
That is, until a few members put their heads together and crank out a suite, position is cheaper, ad become the industry standard for PC based diagnostics, CAN, & OBDII reading and control. Any business that gets crafted within the space and gives DMS appropriate credit for being the synergistic meeting point where the right juices flow, impacts DMS with a new round of interest from local makers, hence, new rounds of $ for our committees.
So my remarks were not intended to shoot down the software purchase. I just want decision makers to look at the whole picture when making calls for DMS. Right now, it is the manufacturers (GM, Toyota, and friends) using tools like what you see in links below. Perhaps good enough for DMS, at least to evaluate, given that I have strong idea that I could make that eval happen? And then capture 4k video of our evaluation, and subsequent software development?
I say we can have it all. I say the set you want is cool and I want to play with it to. But this does not mean we can’t do what I want and develop a competing software/hardware package at DMS. See links below of NI gear of interest to automotive…
http://sine.ni.com/nips/cds/view/p/lang/en/nid/209350
http://www.ni.com/can/
http://www.ni.com/white-paper/52288/en/