Best Method for Timing of Event Sequence

[mBrantley]

Apologies,

I am referring to "trigger" as the input to the DAQ card - and "event" as the response (i.e., change in output) from the card. Hopefully this clarifies my previous statement, as the card would see multiple "triggers" (which are identical but separated temporaly) but it's response (i.e., the "event") would change for each "trigger".

I am not considering "trigger" and "sampling" as the same (again, apologies if my use of terminology is poor). Please let me know if it's still unclear - I may be able to draw something that better represents my goal.

Thanks,

[Kevin_Price]

A drawing would probably help a lot.  Let me clarify the standard NI DAQ terminology as best I can:

trigger - most commonly a digital TTL signal (nominally either 0V or 5V) whose active edge marks an instant in time.   (Some boards support triggering on specific characteristics of an analog signal, but conceptually a trigger will still mark the specific instant when those characteristics first satisfy some particular criteria.)  

   The most common way to use a trigger in a DAQ task is to use it as a "start trigger".  When the trigger condition is satisfied (digital TTL transition edge or analog characteristics), the DAQ task will actively begin its sampling activity. 

sample clock - a digital TTL signal.  It is commonly a square wave at a constant frequency and its active edge will cause the DAQ hardware to either acquire or generate its next sample.

A DAQ task will have only a single trigger instant but may have hundreds to millions or more sample instants.

Is the thing you call "trigger" an instant where there's a digital transition?  Is the thing you call "event" a single output sample?

-Kevin P