When your data acquisition application needs real-time processing and you need to provide a Windows solution, take a look at what Microstar Laboratories now offers
Microstar Laboratories makes data acquisition processor (Dap) boards and systems for data acquisition and control, and has announced a new mid-range Dap board, model number Dap 5000a/526, powered by an Intel Pentium 233MHz CPU.
The Dap 5000a/526 includes 16 analogue inputs, two analogue outputs, 16 digital inputs, and 16 digital outputs.
External rack-mounted hardware can extend these channel counts to 512, 66, 128, and 1024 respectively.
The board can acquire 14-bit data at up to 800k samples per second, and can convert 833k values per second on each of the two onboard analog outputs.
The onboard Pentium processor allows fast real-time processing, and low latency - 0.1ms task time quantum - provides for fast response.
Onboard processing.
A Dap board gives your system an additional processor running a real-time operating system - Dapl - that you control from a Windows application.
This extra resource gives you room to make your application even better.
It frees your application from system delays.
It lets you apply computing power when and where needed.
It means you can sample data and control a process anywhere, anytime.
You can analyze spectra in real time.
Your application responds reliably: in time, every time.
Configuring the Dap board.
Dap boards acquire data, converting analogue signals into digital values.
These digital values stream through conceptual pipes on the board that you set up ahead of time using Dapstudio, a Windows application.
The onboard processor performs any required operations as it transfers data from pipe to pipe.
Again using Dapstudio, you choose these onboard operations from the more than 100 commands available in Dapl.
A typical application may require six or seven of them.
The commands issued to Dapl determine exactly what low-level tasks the Dap will perform, and how it will respond with control signals.
The commands configure the Dap for the application.
Saving the configuration and running your application.
Dapstudio lets you specify Dapl commands by clicking on the appropriate tools as you design the system, and it then lets you save the working configuration as a complete Dap application.
At each step in the development process, the next step presents itself as both obvious and compelling.
At the end of the Dapstudio session you have automatically produced documentation that completely defines your application.
You then can use Dapstudio to run your application - from any PC on a network - with no custom programming and no other vendor software.
Although Dapstudio lets you configure and control any Dap without any other Windows software, you also can do this from Labview, Matlab, and other third-party software.
And from C++, VB, and other applications that allow DLL calls.
The board costs $3195, and you can order it now for immediate delivery.
Dapstudio costs $199.
The company provides unrestricted versions of both hardware and software for evaluation at no charge, and you can download a full version of Dapstudio right now.
