Available Memory Notification at Start of Task for Extended Data/Signal Acquisition

[shawesome]

A customer of mine was trying to read 8 thermocouple readings simultaneously over the course of a week and then store the data.  She quickly found out that there are memory limitations with Signal Express.  Eventually no matter how She saved or logged their data, she would run out of memory.  My product suggestion is to write code that will determine the RAM on a customers computer as well as available hard drive space and show customers (at the start of a task) exactly how long they can acquire signals without filling up their hard drive or seriously draining their resources.  That way when they start a process, they are aware of what they're working with in terms of space at that instant rather than when an error pops up three hours or so later.  Most customers would figure out these needs in advance of any acquisition, but for the ease of the customer, this would be a welcomed additional feature.  It would also be nice to have a document that explained how this time frame was calculated.  I suggest that when a task is ran, there is a pop up that explains the maximum amount of samples that can be acquired and time that can pass.  The document I mentioned could be available via hyper-link, and the hyper-link text could read "How did we calculate this number?", which could explain the process in more depth.

I have submitted this idea for Signal Express at the product suggestion page found at www.ni.com/contact ("feedback" link in bottom left of window).  I figured this would be a good idea for DAQ in general for any extended signal acquisition.

Shawn Shaw

Applications Engineering Department

National Instruments