Dapcell network software allows any or all PCs on a network to run Dapcell server software to handle requests for data acquisition services provided by the DAPs on those PCs
Microstar Laboratories, maker of data acquisition processor (DAP) boards, has announced sensor signal conditioning packages with data acquisition systems that eliminate all aliasing from sampling and that scale up to acquire data for applications with hundreds of inputs.
This results from the synergy of three products: first, Dapcell to synchronise data acquisition on networked PCs to within a few nanoseconds, second, iDSC 1816 boards - specialised DAPs that include analog and digital filters - inside each PC, and third, SCS (Signal Conditioning System) packages in standard industrial enclosures.
Dapcell network software allows any or all PCs on a network to run Dapcell server software to handle requests for data acquisition services provided by the DAPs on those PCs.
Requests for those services come from Dapcell client software on those PCs or on any other PCs on the network.
This technology avoids network limitations on performance.
For instance, a request for high-speed logging to disk can originate anywhere on the network but typically specifies that the Dapcell server software transfers data to a disk on the same PC: the one containing the DAP that acquires the data.
A hardware option distributes clock signals that allow Dapcell to synchronise sampling across all servers on the network to within a few nanoseconds.
iDSC 1816 Board.
The iDSC 1816 board - a specialised DAP with programmable onboard filter circuits - combines 16-bit resolution on eight simultaneous channels of data acquisition with brick-wall anti-alias filters on each channel.
The iDSC 1816 samples analogue inputs at a throughput of 1.2M samples per second, with a sampling rate on each channel that can range from eight samples per second to 153.6k samples per second.
The data stream optionally includes an additional 300k samples per second: information from one or two external timing channels.
Software can parse the data stream to correlate the analog data with events on one or both of the timing channels, to a resolution of 51 nanoseconds.
Dapstudio, a Windows measurement-software application, includes a filter-design option that displays the filter-response curve in real time as you move onscreen sliders to customize the filter on each channel.
You can download Dapstudio from the web to check it out for yourself.
SCS (signal conditioning system) packages.
An SCS package provides direct connection to sensors, and offers many signal-conditioning services in a single convenient, powerful package.
These include:.
Current sensor excitation: 4 mA at up to 28 Volts.
Voltage sensor excitation: 1, 2, 5, and 10 Volts at up to 70 mA.
Quarter-, half-, and full-bridge resistor networks.
120 and 350 ohm resistors as standard options.
Any value resistor networks, sensor by sensor.
Ten full-scale options: 10 mV, 20 mV, 50 mV, 100 mV, 200 mV, 500 mV; 1, 2, 5, and 10 V.
Available offset ranges from between +/-0.5V to +/-5V, depending on input option range used.
Programmable gain with auto-calibration.
Programmable AC/DC coupling for ICP sensors.
Two high-resolution acquisition-synchronised timing channels per module.
Each SCS package consists of an MSIE standard industrial enclosure containing 1, 2, 3, or 4 modules.
Each module connects to an iDSC 1816 contained in a PC and provides it with eight conditioned analog signals and up to two TTL timing signals.
The data stream produced by each iDSC in a PC optionally includes one or two time stamps for each set of eight converted signal samples.
The time stamps give the clock count when the iDSC sensed a rising TTL edge during the analog-to-digital conversion process.
You can use 8-, 16-, or 32-channel building blocks to generate alias-free synchronised data from raw signals at the sensor in applications that can span hundreds of channels sampled simultaneously.
And you can do all this at a very reasonable cost: around US$1000 per channel, excluding the cost of PCs.
