Anyone have experience with Labview software?

A position popped up at my work for an Engineering Technician. Under the required qualifications they want "experience with Labview."

I have none.

Aside from watching YouTube videos, does anyone here know how I can get a crash course in using it? Or any insider tips?

Thank you!!

Used it years ago. Not hard to learn but any skills I have is out of date.

Fueled by Caffeine wrote: Used it years ago. Not hard to learn but any skills I have is out of date.

Same boat. Check your local community college. If not, volunteer to help a prof at an engineering school with lab classes, and I bet you will pickup LabVIEW.

Do you have any programing background at all? It is kind of the legos of the programing world. Not the old legos, but rather the new ones that have a special lego to do anything.

Do you know what they are doing with it? It can be as simple as data/signal acquisition or get more complicated as you go to machine control.

In reply to NOHOME:

My programming experience is very limited. I've been teaching myself Python, and I've done some basic Arduino sketches. I have made Access databases before, don't know if that applies.

I guess I'm hoping they would be willing to train me.

This is part of the posting that may be applicable:

Posting said: Technical functions may include, but are not limited to, data acquisition, electronic communication, designing, testing, modifying, fabricating, and assembling specialized test equipment and experimental design circuitry and control systems. Has complete understanding of technical testing standards and specifications. D

Labview is not that hard to get on to. Two of my guys picked it up for a project. One is a programer and the other is a tech. Did not seem to make much difference. For example, If you have figured out solidworks or any of the circuit design software packages, then you will be able to get on to Labview.

The last sentence is a sign that the who wrote the posting does not know what they are talking about themselves.

Because of the unique nature of what we do, I hire based on potential more than past job experience. I look for guys who think applying the multiple technologies is fun and as a result tend to soak up new stuff when given the chance. If there are six technologies on a job description, and the applicant can convince me that they are solid on three of them, I can be pretty sure that, given a project, they will pick up on the others.

The other thing that I am teasing out during the interview (unspoken) is evidence that you are going to stick around after you soak up a few skills. I want to see at least a five year horizon.

I used it in college and at my first job, like everyone says it's fairly easy to learn- easier than the stuff you mention you've already done.

They'll probably give you a free trial if you make an account on National Instruments' website, and if not you can almost certainly get a student edition if you can find a .edu email address to give them. You can probably teach yourself a lot just with tutorials and playing around with the software.

I also learned it in college and used it to write educational seismograph software that is still running the last I checked.
Learning to write/copy/use chunks of code as modules is important. It's important in all coding, but your code turns into spaghetti hell if you don't have some discipline in LabVIEW. I thought the learning process was simple, but I LOVE wiring diagrams for cars too, always have. I respond very well to visual information flow (which is like electron flow, right?) so it was like a fish in water situation.

Labview is great if you're doing something normal and annoying if you're not.

I recall getting an error that said "expecting array of vectors, received vector of arrays" or something.

You can pick it up. It's expensive to buy just to play with, and without hardware you're not really goiong to be learning much.

I can say definitively that they cheat on their taxes. You pay money, you download software, they send you empty box from some tax free country. Your receiving department scans it so the PO goes through, they get their money, they pay no tax.

Huh, I guess I do have a .edu email- I'll give that a shot. Thank you Chris!

Mazdeuce- that gives me hope! I do wiring diagrams for a living.

Part of the responsibilities would be in the auto labs, which is cool, and I've done lots of work in there. Hopefully that will help!

Thank you all for the input!

In reply to tuna55:

Honestly this doesn't surprise me too much. In my limited experience here, the software systems they tend to choose are not the greatest.