Aimed at mobile, aerospace, experimental stress analysis and test rig applications, the MGCplus data acquisition system eliminates the need for PCs.
HBM UK has revealed its latest data acquisition system.
Aimed at mobile, aerospace, experimental stress analysis and test rig applications, the MGCplus eliminates the need for PCs.
Its modular design features optional multi-channel cards that allow each unit to offer all the benefits of synchronous and parallel data acquisition at a similar pricing level to Multiplex systems. Each unit can be expanded to over 2,000 individual measurement channels.
MGCplus is a compact unit that can be used in fixed or mobile testing applications to monitor and record combinations of mechanical properties, such as force, displacement, pressure, strain, acceleration and torque.
The MGCplus unit combines data acquisition with signal conditioning and data storage.
Individual transducers can be connected directly to the unit and data is stored on a removable hard drive.
Once all the transducers have been connected they are calibrated using the MGCplus Assistant software.
The completed set-up parameters can then be saved on the unit or onto a PC for instant recall at a later time.
To allow fast retrieval and analysis, the MGCplus uses intelligent data reduction to store data from the transducers in two formats. The first format captures the raw data in its entirety.
The second format is a compressed version that reduces the data to between a 500th to a 20,000th of the original file size, making it much faster to access from the hard drive than the entire data set.
This compression allows the whole data set to be previewed very quickly.
Typically, the compressed version of a 280MB data file will be around 46kB, and will take <7seconds to retrieve as opposed to 15 minutes for the raw data.
Once a particular incident or time interval has been selected by the engineer, the system has a zoom function that will automatically call up the relevant section from the raw data set, speeding-up the analysis and reporting process.
The MGCplus unit can be set-up locally from its own keypad or from a remote computer.
Using an Ethernet connection, a whole bank of devices can be controlled from a central computer, removing the need for an engineer with a PC at each installation.
MGCplus has a maximum sampling rate of 19.2kHz and can take simultaneous readings over more than 3,000 separate transducer channels.
The unit is able to communicate with software and other instruments via RS printer interfaces, Ethernet, IEEE 488, Profibus DP and CAN-bus.
MGCplus can use either dc or, more commonly, carrier frequency amplifiers for EMC stability and enhanced levels of accuracy.
This system eliminates interference to give ten times higher zero-point accuracy and 20 times higher accuracy for temperature-dependant linearity over standard dc only signal amplifier systems.
