Evaluation Engineering - 24

DATA ACQUISITION

counter, DAQ, and digital I/O Module offers eight frequency channels, 16 isolated
digital I/O ports, and two isolated DAQ
channels; it can measure revolutions/minute from a tooth wheel and position and
speed from a quadrature encoder signal.
"VTI products also include a set of
independent, Gigabit Ethernet, ruggedized, LXI instruments for testing
in a wide range of environmental conditions," Gibson said, including the
RX0124 24-channel bridge and straingauge measurement, RX0224 24-channel
charge-vibration-measurement, RX0424
24-channel IEPE-accelerometer instruments, and the RX1032 32-channel thermocouple measurement system. "These
instruments are rated for operation over
an extremely wide temperature range of
-20°C to +60°C and are capable of withstanding harsh environments such as jet
engine test cells," he added.
Additional independent, LXI dataacquisition instruments employ powerover-Ethernet (PoE) for portable acquisition applications and include the EX1401
16-channel isolated thermocouple and
voltage measurement instrument with
built-in cold-junction compensation,
open thermocouple detection, and 13thorder polynomial linearization for thermocouple voltages in real time; and the
EX1403 16-channel bridge and strain
gauge measurement instrument with
built-in shunt calibration and TEDS support, Gibson said.
Gibson also commented on software.
"Customers with sophisticated dataacquisition applications need to write
their own software," he said. "To serve
these customers, VTI products provide
industry-standard IVI-COM, IVI-C, and
LabVIEW drivers. In addition, these products enable customers to work in either
the Windows operating system or the
Linux operating system, depending on
the customer's preference."
All LXI modules have built-in web
browsers for web-based access using any
web-enabled device located anywhere in
the world. All modules allow monitoring
and control to save significant time during test setup and troubleshooting.
He added, "VTI ExLab, a data-acquisition software package with icon-based

24

EVALUATION ENGINEERING MAY/JUNE 2020

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setup/control and a spreadsheet-style format, is available for less extensive data acquisition applications. ExLab has a client/
server architecture with multiple displays,
real-time graphical analysis, and numerous post-acquisition analysis methods."
VPG offers two brands of instrumentation, according to Anton Chittey, Europe
product and sales manager with MicroMeasurements, and Patrick Rule, senior
sales manager with Pacific Instruments.
"Micro-Measurements instruments
including our StrainSmart systems offer turnkey solutions enabling setup in
minutes for rapidly changing test requirements, from 1 to 1,024 channels.
This makes them ideal for small-tomedium test laboratories performing
anything from material property tests,
PCBA production qualification, automotive, aerospace, and education," they
said. "Pacific Instruments (PI) offers high
speed (up to 10 Ms/s) and high channel
counts (>8,000). In addition, PI [products]
have compatibility with third-party control systems and data streams as well as
in-rack analog, DSP, and digital outputs
for low-latency control and emergency
shutdown conditions."
With regard to data collection
and analysis, Chittey and Rule
said data is sent to a Windowsbased PC over USB or Ethernet.
"An optional embedded hard
drive inside the DAQ allows
for redundant recording and
is often desired in destructive
testing applications where tests
can only be run once," they explained. "Data is recorded in
raw A/D counts and exported
after recording to any post analysis
package format for data analysis. Data reduction is available by decimation either
during export or during recording which
effectively allows the user to change their
sample rate on the fly."
They added, "Export features also allow for the user to export all or certain
channels or specific time slices of data.
Playback mode allows for recorded data
to be replayed and viewed in desired time
increments and in many different types
of displays. Calculated channels are also
easily defined pre- or post-recording and

easily displayed and exported along analog data."
Keithley Instruments focuses on precision data acquisition when accuracy
and reliability are a priority, according
to Brad Odhner, technical marketing
manager. "Our two main offerings are
the DAQ6510 6-1/2-digit data-acquisition
and logging multimeter and the 3706A
systems switch/multimeter," he said. "The
DAQ6510 features a touchscreen user interface that greatly simplifies test setup
without the need to navigate complex
menus or use an external computer. It
also allows simple real-time monitoring
of tests via the front panel, allowing users to check their tests at a glance. The
3706A offers a 7-1/2-digit multimeter for
enhanced precision and six customizable
card slots, allowing test flexibility and up
to 576 2-wire channels. Both instruments
also offer built-in scripting support with
Keithley Test Script Processor (TSP), allowing custom programs and calculations to be run on the DAQs themselves."

Keithley DAQ6510 6-1/2-digit data-acquisition
and logging multimeter.

Odhner added that Keithley Test Script
Processor (TSP) technology helps to enhance scan speeds and achieve the faster
scan rates. "This embedded scripting also
allows our DAQs to operate on their own
without waiting for a controlling computer to command the next step in a
sequence or calculate a result," he said.
"TSP is commonly used so a Keithley
DAQ can control a part handler or environmental chamber."
http://www.bkprecision.com
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