Is it possible to acquire an analog input without a DAQ board?

[cascao]

Hi,

we have a licenses for LabVIEW but do not have DAQ boards on every
single machine. Does anyone know if it is possible to acquire an
analog input in a cheaper way? For example through the parallel,
serial or sound speaker ports?

Thanks,

Luis


-------------------------------------------------------
Luis G. Cascão Pereira, Ph.D.
Scientist I
Genencor International
925 Page Mill Road
Palo Alto, CA 94304-1013
Tel: 650-846-7685
Fax: 650-621-8186
Mailto:Lcascao@genencor.com
-------------------------------------------------------

[Dennis_Knutson]

There are cheap (<$100) daq modules that you can connect to a serial port or USB. A computer's sound card can be used as well. The sound card does have limitations as far as number of channels and you'd have to do some sort of signal conditioning to get a voltage reading into the mic input of the sound card. One source of serial port modules is B&B Electronics at www.bb-elec.com. I've never used their stuff and the only reason I mention them is that I happened to receive a catalog from them yesterday.

[Giarc]

Luis,

One possible solution for you would be to use RDA (Remote Device Access). If you have more computers than you do DAQ boards, it is possible to share the DAQ boards you have through RDA. If you go to www.ni.com, and follow this path: support > troubleshooting > knowledgebase and then click on "search all entries" and type in "RDA", the third entry down ("What is Remote Device Access (RDA)?")is a link to a KB with several sublinks to other KBs that have lots of information on performing RDA.

Hope this helps!

Criag

[Anonymous]

There are USB and ethernet based DAQ boards out there. Look in
a Nuts n' Volts magazine. Advantech.com has a line of products called
ADAM. Most of them use RS422/485 but there are a few that use
ethernet.

I think you may be better off just purchasing daq boards from Measurement
Computing (formerly ComputerBoards). I know you mentioned parallel and
serial ports but they have ISA boards that start at $180. Check out
their CIO-DAS08/JR. Here's the specs:

**Analog Input Specifications**
Input resolution: 12-bits (1 in 4096)
Input range: ±5V
Max sample rate: 20KHz

**Analog Outputs**
Channels 2, 12-bit resolution
Output range ±5V

Digital Input/Output:
Number of bits: 16-bits TTL, 8 in, 8 out

If you're concerned about ISA being obsolet
e, they also have an
equivalent PCI board for $249.


Good luck,
Kevin

In article <4d06d18.0209120951.561bd619@posting.google.com>, "Luis Cascão
Pereira" wrote:

> Hi,
>
> we have a licenses for LabVIEW but do not have DAQ boards on every
> single machine. Does anyone know if it is possible to acquire an analog
> input in a cheaper way? For example through the parallel, serial or
> sound speaker ports?
>
> Thanks,
>
> Luis
>
>
> ------------------------------------------------------- Luis G. Cascão
> Pereira, Ph.D.
> Scientist I
> Genencor International
> 925 Page Mill Road
> Palo Alto, CA 94304-1013
> Tel: 650-846-7685
> Fax: 650-621-8186
> Mailto:Lcascao@genencor.com
> -------------------------------------------------------

[wiebe@CARYA]

Hi,

Sound cards might have an LF-filter on the input, to filter out DC signals.

For aquiring sound it is (of course) suitable.

Regards,

Wiebe.

"Dennis Knutson" wrote in message
news:506500000005000000AB9F0000-1031838699000@exchange.ni.com...
> There are cheap (<$100) daq modules that you can connect to a serial
> port or USB. A computer's sound card can be used as well. The sound
> card does have limitations as far as number of channels and you'd have
> to do some sort of signal conditioning to get a voltage reading into
> the mic input of the sound card. One source of serial port modules is
> B&B Electronics at www.bb-elec.com. I've never used their stuff and
> the only reason I mention them is that I happened to receive a catal
og
> from them yesterday.

[Steve Parus]

There is a $100 USB device at http://www.labjack.com/ with LabVIEW
drivers.

Features
8 Single-Ended, 4 Differential 12-Bit Analog Inputs
±10 Volt Analog Input Range
PGA with Gains of 1, 2, 4, 5, 8, 10, 16, or 20 V/V
Up to 8 kSamples/Sec (Burst) or 1.2 kSamples/Second (Stream)
Supports Software or Hardware Timed Acquisition
Supports Triggered Acquisition
2 Analog Outputs
20 Digital I/O (Up to 50 Hz per I/O)
32-Bit Counter
Watchdog Timer Function


Note that most serial devices do not have on-board hardware clocks and
thus rely on software timing for controlling the time-between-point.
That software delay can be in error if the computer system or Windows
does something such as open another document, etc. This is easily
seen using LabVIEW's delay functio
n and GetTickCount function to
record the time between successive delays. You do not even need an
acquisition card to check this delay error.

Steve Parus
University of Michigan
Department of Chemistry

[Steve Parus]

I found this informative:
the first KB entry 1GT6ALW3,

then the Related Link Applicatio Note 118 How To Network Two PCs for
Remote Data Acquisition,

then on its first page at the bottom, "Conclusions: For more
information on RDA, refer to the following application note:
Developing Networked Data Acquisition Systems with NI-DAQ"

Steve

On Thu, 12 Sep 2002 15:32:07 -0500 (CDT), criag wrote:

>www.ni.com, and follow this path: support > troubleshooting >
>knowledgebase and then click on "search all entries" and type in
>"RDA", the third entry down ("What is Remote Device Access (RDA)?")is
>a link to a KB with several sublinks to other KBs that have lots of
>information on performing RDA.

[eh]

The NI 6023E card is pretty resonable. It costs $395 and comes with NIDAQ, so it integrates well with LabVIEW. There are cheaper cards out there, but you could easily spend much more time writing your own drivers for them. Another plus is this card will work with NI�s solution wizard, which can be a great help sometimes.

[pn2500]

www.dataq.com

has a 25$ 10-bit +-10V 4channel analog / 3 channel digital, serial
pod that can acquire at ~120Hz, using Labview driver or Dataq
logger app.

great replacement for expensive DMM for common ~1%/10mV accuracy applications.

12 bits goes for 100$

I have used the 25$ version and can recommend it as a very good deal.


> Hi,
>
> we have a licenses for LabVIEW but do not have DAQ boards on every
> single machine. Does anyone know if it is possible to acquire an
> analog input in a cheaper way? For example through the parallel,
> serial or sound speaker ports?
>
> Thanks,
>
> Luis
>
>
> -------------------------------------------------------
> Luis G. Cascão Pereira, Ph.D.
> Scientist I
> Genencor International
> 925 Page Mill Road
> Palo Alto, CA 9430
4-1013
> Tel: 650-846-7685
> Fax: 650-621-8186
> Mailto:Lcascao@genencor.com
> -------------------------------------------------------

[stu22]

Hi Luis, why don't u try using Fieldpoint. The particular fieldpoint i use, use's an rs232/rs485 network interface and an analog input module which u can transfer easly pc to pc, mac to mac etc. Due it being modular.All u need is the network interface for each pc and buy the module when u need for them or just transfer the entire fieldpoint to different pc's etc. They cost around a few hundred dollars for the network interface and then u can buy modules when u want so the expense is not high. The one i use is FP-1000 with a FP-AI-110 8-channel, 16-bit analog input.
they also have many other modules e.g. thermocouple input, analog output etc. And the vi's for these modules are on the NI downloads.

Regards Stuart