What is the needed analog inputs to UMI 7764

[Bill Pedersen]

Do these signals need to be 0-10 V? +/- 10 V or what?

[dmp]

National Instruments motion controllers (and therefore the UMI), accept analog inputs in the -10 Volt to +10 Volt range. This means that your analog signal cannot exceed these voltage levels, but it can be anywhere within this range. You then specify the input voltage range over which the analog to digital converters (ADCs) will convert the input voltages to digital values, according to the voltage range returned by your analog signal. You can choose from any of the following ranges:

0 to 5 V
-5 to +5 V
0 to 10 V
-10 to 10 V (default)

Voltages outside of the range will clamp at the extreme values.

For more information on setting the range of your ADC channels in Measurement & Automation Explorer (MAX), please refer to the following tutorial:
Developer Zone Tutorial: ADC Settings for Motion Controllers

Hope this helps!

Best regards,
Dawna P.
Applications Engineer
National Instruments

[Buechsenschuetz]

However you set the ADC input range you should take care that the output of the analog front end you are using covers the range of the ADC as completely as possible. Or, the other way round, the ADC input range should match the output of the analog front end as close as possible (with a bit of headroom). Otherwise, you are giving away resolution - if you, for example, have an analog output of 0 to 5V and set the ADC to 0 to 10V input range you will loose 50 p.c. of resolution (or one bit of resolution).