Measurement Computing DAQ Boards and LV

[linuz]

I have been using LV and NI DAQ boards for several years with
excellent results. Goodby C++ forever (well...).

My boss sent me a flyer for Measurement Computing DAQ Boards and the
prices are great. They even offer a card I can't get from NI.

My question is: how well do these boards work with LV? Can I use all
the NI supplied VI's or must I use only the ones provided with the
Measurement Computing card?

Does anyone sell a card that clones a NI card so all the NI VI's work?

Thanks,
Linuz

[Greg_McKaskle2]

> I have been using LV and NI DAQ boards for several years with
> excellent results. Goodby C++ forever (well...).
>
> My boss sent me a flyer for Measurement Computing DAQ Boards and the
> prices are great. They even offer a card I can't get from NI.
>
> My question is: how well do these boards work with LV? Can I use all
> the NI supplied VI's or must I use only the ones provided with the
> Measurement Computing card?
>
> Does anyone sell a card that clones a NI card so all the NI VI's work?

Any board can work with LV provided it has a driver to control it or you
are ready to do peeking and poking to the board. Ideally it will also
have the DLL calls into the driver wrapped into some VIs for easier use
by LV users.

Measurement Computing does have
drivers, and you can purchase LV VIs for
their cards.

Before I go on, remember that I work for NI, so feel free to get another
opinion or look into it yourself, but you will see a BIG difference in
the SW support for boards from various manufacturers. NI provides lots
of SW tools, VIs, and tech support, and that is reflected in the price
of the boards. If a company sells the same board for less, they may be
providing less in the SW and support side. You and your manager will
have to determine the overall price of the project based upon your time
spent installing, troubleshooting, writing VIs, and the price of the HW.

As for a company making a clone of our HW so they can redistribute our
driver? That has happened in the past, but to my knowledge no boards on
the market currently do that.

Greg McKaskle

[Joey Oravec]

Here's an opinion from somebody who doesn't work for NI also...

The measurement computing boards are technically very good, and also very
inexpensive. However the last one (a multifunction DAQ card, I forget the
model number) definately suffered from the SW differences you describe.

I already have enough difficulty getting the NI cards to work properly; for
a complicated project I wouldn't want to add a 3rd party card to the mix!
Usually it's worth a couple hundred bucks to have the full NI-DAQ driver,
support with NI-MAX, standard NI vis, and technical support if (when) the
whole system doesn't work as documented. I have had enough trouble using
RTSI synchronization between genuine boxed NI products. For an ambitious
project I would rarely consider a 3rd party DAQ solution.

On the other hand, if your application is straightforward and you like the
cost savings then go for it. When I tried the computerboards card, the SW
was lackluster but functional. The HW was very solid and around 1/3 of the
price. Given that Labview PDS is so freaking expensive, I would definately
consider a 3rd party board for routine tasks. I had a fine experience with
the computerboards card and the approx $500 savings (at the time) made the
project affordable.

-joey

"Greg McKaskle" wrote in message
news:3D7761AE.2070603@austin.rr.com...
> > I have been using LV and NI DAQ boards for several years with
> > excellent results. Goodby C++ forever (well...).
> >
> > My boss sent me a flyer for Measurement Computing DAQ Boards and the
> > prices are great. They even offer a card I can't get from NI.
> >
> > My question is: how well do these boards work with LV? Can I use all
> > the NI supplied VI's or must I use only the ones provided with the
> > Measurement Computing card?
> >
> > Does anyone sell a card that clones a NI card so all the NI VI's work?
>
> Any board can work with LV provided it has a driver to control it or you
> are ready to do peeking and poking to the board. Ideally it will also
> have the DLL calls into the driver wrapped into some VIs for easier use
> by LV users.
>
> Measurement Computing does have drivers, and you can purchase LV VIs for
> their cards.
>
> Before I go on, remember that I work for NI, so feel free to get another
> opinion or look into it yourself, but you will see a BIG difference in
> the SW support for boards from various manufacturers. NI provides lots
> of SW tools, VIs, and tech support, and that is reflected in the price
> of the boards. If a company sells the same board for less, they may be
> providing less in the SW and support side. You and your manager will
> have to determine the overall price of the project based upon your time
> spent installing, troubleshooting, writing VIs, and the price of the HW.
>
> As for a company making a clone of our HW so they can redistribute our
> driver? That has happened in the past, but to my knowledge no boards on
> the market currently do that.
>
> Greg McKaskle
>

[Linuz]

On Thu, 05 Sep 2002 13:52:13 GMT, Greg McKaskle
wrote:

>> I have been using LV and NI DAQ boards for several years with
>> excellent results. Goodby C++ forever (well...).
>>
>> My boss sent me a flyer for Measurement Computing DAQ Boards and the
>> prices are great. They even offer a card I can't get from NI.
>>
>> My question is: how well do these boards work with LV? Can I use all
>> the NI supplied VI's or must I use only the ones provided with the
>> Measurement Computing card?
>>
>> Does anyone sell a card that clones a NI card so all the NI VI's work?
>
>Any board can work with LV provided it has a driver to control it or you
>are ready to do peeking and poking to the board. Ideally it will also
>have the DLL calls into the driver wrapped into some VIs for easier use
>by LV users.
>
>Measurement Computing does have drivers, and you can purchase LV VIs for
>their cards.

I had planned to purchase the drivers and VI's, but if they don't use
the native LV VI's, I am not very interested.

>
>Before I go on, remember that I work for NI, so feel free to get another
>opinion or look into it yourself, but you will see a BIG difference in
>the SW support for boards from various manufacturers. NI provides lots
>of SW tools, VIs, and tech support, and that is reflected in the price
>of the boards. If a company sells the same board for less, they may be
>providing less in the SW and support side. You and your manager will
>have to determine the overall price of the project based upon your time
>spent installing, troubleshooting, writing VIs, and the price of the HW.

Thanks, that is exactly the answer I was looking for. I refuse to
write most of these projects in C++. It is simply too time consuming
and if I get a subset of the NI VI's, well, it's just as time
consuming to learn new VI's.

Some of the GPIB equipment I use provide a few basic VI's and I have
to generate most of the actual coding myself. I am afraid MC's VI's
would be similar.


>
>As for a company making a clone of our HW so they can redistribute our
>driver? That has happened in the past, but to my knowledge no boards on
>the market currently do that.

Thanks for all the info. I was asked to look into the alternatives,
but knew there had to be a tradeoff. It is funny you mention project
prices, as this was what drove the original question. We may purchace
a sample to see just what you get, but I don't expect too much.

Thanks Again,
Linuz