Measuring low duty cycle pulse widths with X series counters.

[bee man]

Can an X series counter configured to measure pulse widths be used as an event detector to measure microsecond events over a 10 minute period. I need the output to be an array of the measured pulse widths, 1 to 10 microseconds. The pulse event is random and a perfect test would have no events in a 10 minute period, a bad test could have thousands.

[C-Dav]

bee man,

Are you asking from the perspective of hardware capability for the X series?  If so, which specific X series are you using?

As far as being able to set up event detection on a counter input measuring pulse width, I don't see any issue.  If I misunderstood your questions though please elaborate so I can better understand your intention.

Regards,

[bee man · Accepted solution]

The X series device is a USB-6363.  We have solved the issue using the measure continuous pulse  width example vi along with the property node for counter rollover.  We can now measure sub microsecond to about 214 second pulses.  The rollover tells us if the pulse was longer than the counter max value.  The while loop iteration time has to be limited for some reason, possibly USB communications to read the counter status?  A read must reset the roll over flag, but I did not find that documented anywhere.  Thanks to NI for their help!