Cost effective sound level meter

[CTSFranklin]

All,

What do you believe is the most cost effective way to capture sound level in LabVIEW? All I care about is the decibel level of an extremely noisy enviroment (~130dB). I was thinking a cheap sound meter with analog out connected to my NI-9215. Do you think this will be accurate or would you all recommend another microphone.

Thanks in advance.

-Franklin

[REDS]

Hi Franklin,

If you already have a 9215 with a cDAQ chassis, then a cheap sound meter sounds like a good instrument for you to get the volume of a noisy environment. Just take a look at the specs for your available sound meters for sound fidelity and adjust your 9215 for the maximum voltage range you expect from your sensor. You can then set up a scale to convert from volts to Pascal. (There are no "dB" units even if you create a custom scale, so you can try to use Pascal instead).