How to synchronize onboard clocks?

[twayne]

Hello,

I am working with a NI-PXI-1045 chassis.

There are several NI boards in the chassis and a ZTec1000 GPS board.  Supposedly it is possible to synch all of the onboard clocks of the NI boards to the time generated by the GPS card.

I have been having no luck figuring out how to do this.

Anyone have any ideas?

Thanks.

Message Edited by twayne on 05-11-2006 11:41 AM

[NatasaLingurovska]

Hi twayne,

What type of NI PXI cards do you have in the chassis that you are trying to synchronize?

[twayne]

sorry it took me so long to reply.

the cards that are in the chassis are:

Slot 1: NI PXI-8330

Slot 2: ZTec ZT1000PXI GPS (GPS time source)

Slot 3: NI PXI-8421

Slot 4: NI PXI-5412

Slot 5: NI PXI-6052E

Slot 6: NI PXI-8420

Slot 7: NI PXI-8232

Slot 8: NI PXI-8221

Slot 9: NI PXI-4472

Slot 10: AIM-USA ACI 1553 (1553 Mux Bus card)

Slot 11, 12: LeCroy PXD 1022 (not sure if this is plugged into 11 or 12 but it takes up both spaces in the front panel)

These are all of the card we have installed.  At the moment I am mainly working with the cards in slots 9, 10, and 11/12, though i will probably eventaully be using some of the others.  The GPS card is slot 2 is the time source that i am wanting to synch the other cards to.

thanks.

[NatasaLingurovska]

I did some research about this and unfortunately we don't have any documentation for GPS synchronizing using the ZTec ZT1000PXI GPS card and onboard clocks of the NI cards. The info we have available for GPS synchronization is listed here, but this setup is using PXI-6608 counter card. However, some of the information given might give you ideas on how to implement it in your setup.

Another option that you can try is to put some kind of clock on the backplane and see how each measurement device can synch to that clk/pulse.

Sorry I can't me more helpful at this time.

 

[twayne]

Hello again,

I actually think that putting the clk on the backplane was what was intended for this system.  I just dont know how to do that.  Can you give me any pointers for trying to get this set up?

thanks.

[NatasaLingurovska]

You can use the 6608 card to generate a 10MHz clock which will overwrite the chassis clock on the backplane. Then you can use this clock to synchronize it with your GPS card. Once the GPS card is in synch with the 6608, then you can use this timebase as reference clock for controlling all other cards. As far as how to the implementation of the 6608, please refer to the link I proved it the previous post.