Which courses to take to develop test rig

[K.Waris]

Hello

I will be developing test rig to test the aero engine parts. Haven't been given more specification so for.

To date I had helped senior engineers designing labview applications and it looks like I will be the only one available to design test rig. I am thinking to take relevant courses but not sure which one are the most useful ones. I have done core 1,core 2, real time1 and FPGA. Please advise

Kind Regards

Austin

[Ray.R]

Yes, taking Core 1 & 2 would be a start.

You can also do some free tutorials on your own.

To learn more about LabVIEW, I suggest you try looking at some of these tutorials.

[K.Waris]

I have already done core 1,2, RT and FPGA

I am looking for the courses which are more relevant to designing test rigs?

[RavensFan]

I'd recommend taking LabVIEW Intermediate 1 and 2 which gives a bit more architecture framework to develop a more advanced application.

But I think the question you need to answer is what kind of things do you feel you don't know enough about for developing test rigs.  Then it might be easier to suggest any courses that could fill those knowledge gaps.

[Ray.R]

You should also describe what a "test rig" is..

Is it the test fixture (metal works)?

Is it a rack of test instruments?

Is it a combo of the above + Test PC?

Is it something else?

If you are interfacing to test instruments, does the mfg provide drivers for them?

[K.Waris]

Hi I have now few information.

It is to design a control system to test hydraulic power pack as a unit under test. Unit under test is coupled with load ram and position sensor feeds back into the PID. Depending upon the position sensor signal a load command is generated which passes through the PID and the feed back is provided by a load sensor.

The task is to design a load profile against the position sensor values on a 2-d plot in a labview.

Any ideas?

Kind Regards

Austin

[Ray.R]

What is connected to the sensors? 

Are you using DAQ boards, if so which one?

ie: DAQmx from NI or other mfg.

Also consider signal conditioning before connecting to the DAQ. <<< very important.

In that case, the DAQ courses are quite useful... (You may have already mentionned those..)

[SteveChandler]

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@Ravens Fan wrote:

I'd recommend taking LabVIEW Intermediate 1 and 2 which gives a bit more architecture framework to develop a more advanced application.

But I think the question you need to answer is what kind of things do you feel you don't know enough about for developing test rigs.  Then it might be easier to suggest any courses that could fill those knowledge gaps.

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There is no more Intermediate 1 and 2. They are now three courses - Core 1, Core 2 and Core 3.

I have taken just about all of the courses offered by NI. The Core 3 class is the funest one, Advanced Architectures is by far the best, and the Performance class is also a good one to take.

[Ray.R]

Back in the days, it was Basic 1 & 2, followed by Intermediate 1 & 2 and then Advanced.

This is the first time I hear of the Performance class.  What is covered in that one?

(although the title kinda gives it away)

[SteveChandler]

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@Ray.R wrote:

This is the first time I hear of the Performance class.  What is covered in that one?

(although the title kinda gives it away)

---

They cover the right way to build arrays and show the impact of using a  shift register and build array. They go over inplaceness, constant folding, the clumping algorithm, how memory is allocated, the execution system, multithreading and vi priorities. They teach about vi profiling and using the Desktop Execution Trace Toolkit and Windows Perfmon. They talk about how to profile a vi and give a shocking demonstration of why you don't want to update controls and indicator values using property nodes. They also talk about the importance of closing references to prevent memory leaks. Some really basic and obvious material but also a lot of good information as well.

They start off by defining performance as "it meets the requirements". So if you are using build array and a shift register to initialize a 10 element array and this only happens once in the beginning of your program you are wasting time and money if you spend time trying to tweak it for maximum performance. There is no reason to make a VI in your initialization code go from 10mS to 1uS even though it could be done. But that code it is called in a loop you will want to take a look at it. It could make the difference between a vi taking an hour vs. a second.

There is a sample of the training and excersize manuals but I have not taken a look at them. You can also download the course outline.