Using "slip rings" to connect to data acquisition equipment

[Ed_McC]

I would like to know about anyone's experience using slip rings for connecting to data acquisition systems.

I am working on a project to instrument a centrifuge. A slip ring is used to connect electrical signals to equipment inside the centrifuge. SCXI will be used in the centrifuge for the signal conditioning and a PC with a DAQ board will be located outside the centrifuge for data acquisition.

What issues will I face with regards to the analog signal and also the digital control signals?

Thank you for your response.

Ed McConnell

[Jim_in_Oceanside]

Ed
You can bet there will be a tremendous level of noise on the lines. The system effects will be relative to the signal to noise. If you have enough space and power to support an SCXI chassis, I would strongly suggest you investigate using a Minidat from Viasat. It is an wireless ethernet (Cisco Aironet) pc card holder using any AI card that is compatible with RDA. Data rates are 150K-200K samples/sec.

[Filipe A.]

Ed;

I believe the main issue there is going to be noise.
I'm not familiar with that equipment of yours, but, if a slow sample rate is allowed, the best way to go about that is to use a 4Hz filter in to get rid of the noise. Some SCXI modules have that built in and can be enabled in MAX.

Hope this helps.
Filipe A.
Applications Engineer
National Instruments