Portable acquisition
16 April 2008
A bus-powered data acquisition format introduces high-rel features to USB domain.
A bus-powered, portable, USB digital I/O, 96-channel data acquisition unit from National Instruments can be used in industrial control and automated test applications as well as for general-purpose data acquisition and academic applications.
The USB-6509 provides high-reliability features for industrial or harsh applications which were previously only available in PCI and PXI systems, namely, programmable power-up states, digital I/O watchdog timers, change detection and programmable input filters.
With programmable power-up states, engineers can pre-define the state in which the USB-6509 device powers up, ensuring consistent, reliable operation when connected to industrial actuators such as pumps, valves, motors or relays. Digital I/O watchdog timers can detect a variety of fault conditions such as a computer crash and automatically respond by setting the outputs to a user-defined safe state. With change detection, the device automatically triggers an application to perform a read operation after a digital line changes state. Also, engineers can eliminate unintended glitches and spikes in input data and avoid false readings caused by noise with programmable input filters.
The plug and play USB unit is compatible with TTL, CMOS and 5V digital logic levels. Each port of eight lines is individually configurable for input or output. The USB-6509 can drive external digital devices such as solid-state relays with current up to 24mA per line. Pull-up and pull-down resistors stabilise the bus potential during a non-access state. It can source up to 215mA across all digital output lines. An optional 12V DC power supply is available for additional sourcing current.
The USB-6509 works with NI-DAQmx driver software and is compatible with the company’s LabVIEW, LabWindows/CVI, ANSI C/C++, Visual Basic .NET, C# and Visual Basic 6.0.
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