Post your improvement ideas & suggestions for future Signal Express releases.

[OKors]

Maybe I'm just having a bad week; but I've been bitten twice by Signal Express recently, resulting in erroneous data or NO data at all. I also think a fix to prevent this from occurring again could be easily addressed.

1) Save custom scaling properties within .seproj instrument file not just within MAX.

Scenario: I had a test configured with custom scales already defined for the transducers being used. My test got delayed a day and during that delay the system was used briefly on another project. Both projects happened to have the same model and range transducers but different cal values (very common scenario in our industry). As per our normal procedure, the other user selected the sensor type from the Scales library and edited the transducers Custom Scaling info to match his specific device. However, because we keep a kind of 'generic' library of commonly used sensors, the user ended up inadvertenly selecting and editing the scale of the transducer my instrument file was referencing. The system was later returned without my knowledge that anything had changed. It was much later that I discovered the scaling for one of my sensors was way off resulting in erroneous data.

I realize the scales are handled in MAX which is a seperate environment all together, and exists as more of a database, but is there a way to save the scale's properties to the .seproj instrument file istelf so that there is no chance of someone editing the database and affecting the scales you have saved with your project? Even if there's some sort of check when launching a saved project file that says; "hey, your custom scale for channel XYZ has been modified since last startup", or something along those lines. This is the only DAQ software I've used that hosts its sensor's cal info in a seperate environment. Most other software saves the sensor info to the instrument file, so if you open the file up 6 months later the sensor info will always be the same.

2) Please add a dialog/warning box or a MUCH more obvious Step Error Icon when there is an error in the Save to ASCII step.

If there's an invalid input parameter such as invalid character in save path directory (Error 1), and you have "On errors, show details immediately" unchecked, you get no other indication anything is wrong. The error icon which appears in the Save to ASCII step is too easily overlooked since it blends in very will with the step icon itself. The frustrating part is the program still displays your data feed so if you hit RUN and monitor the graph it appears to be logging just fine but at the end of acquisition you'll have no saved data file.

It would be helpful if the error created a breakpoint in the RUN sequence so if nothing else you would not see live data being displayed and "think" you were saving. I'd rather be interrupted by a pesky dialog box (other than the "Execution Status Message" which is easily overridden) than be tricked into believing I was saving data when really I'm not.

[Ronny_C]

Dear all,

Saving custom scaling properties within .seproj is something I would appreciate much too. We're having a lot of problems with this, because we have large or time-consuming measuring projects, and the person who's doing the measurements changes. When one person calibrates or changes a sensor, then the person who's continuing the measurements (with his own pc) the next day is measuring wrong or is missing custom scales. So this would certainly be a usefull addition.

Kind regards

Ronny Comyn

Picanol Belgium

[DFGray]

Depending upon the support by the step, this may already exist.  You can save steps with a particular configuration in your favorites step folder (assuming your SignalExpress is new enough).  Check out the help for details.

[OKors]

what would you be saving to the favorites exactly?

You can add steps to the favorites but it doesn't save any of the step's configurations. In fact even when saving a DAQmx Acquire step to favs, when you select the saved step from a blank proj file it prompts you for channel information and leaves all the settings at thier default.

Example: I saved a pre-configured DAQmx Acquire step to my favorates, consisting of 2 channels each with custom Input Ranges and custom scales. I then deleted the step and re-added the step from the Favorites and I had to enter each of the channels info again.

It appears favorites just give you access to commonly used steps so you dont have to drill through the Add Step heirachy each time. It does not save any configuration info.

...unless I'm overlooking something.

but to drive Ronny_C's point home; his is a perfect example of why custom scales need to be saved to the .seproj file and not a seperate behind-the-scenes program.

Our sister lab here in my facility uses Somats for DAQ. Their tests can be days-long, over a hundred channels, and requires cross support from all members of their group. One config file gets saved to the network where the whole group can access it. Any one of them can pull up the config file on their laptop and start and stop acquisition, because all calibration info is saved within the config file and not the local machine on which it was created.

we Signal Express users cannot do this unless the PC or laptop we're using has the exact same scale's library as the orignal config file was built on. And by "exact same" I mean, word for word, letter for letter, spaces and caps.
I know because I spend a lot of time managing this library and updating and transfering scales info from machine to machine so they're all consistent.

Very frustrating limitation.

BTW I'm running SigEx 2013 v7.0.0
this should be the latest release.

[Instech87]

I don't know if this helps but I Update/Export my Scales in MAX and keep a master .nce file on the network so that I can Import the Scales to my local computer (that has MAX installed) prior to starting the test.  This way I have the latest Scales in MAX locally. Each Scale is named based on the Calibration Number (model/serial number would also work as a convention).  In the Scale name, I also include information on how the input should be configured.  For example a Scale named "CalID_123_OmegadyneP100_200psig_NRSE" identifies the specific unit by CalID number (123 but this could be a serial number), provides the model number (P100) and range (200psig), and how it should be configured in the DAQmx Acquire Step (NRSE).  Unfortunately, I can't do this for some sensors that require the scaling to be entered in the Step (accelerometers for example).  This may be an area where TEDS would be useful but I don't have that capability in most of my sensors.

Hope this helps.

[OKors]

We don't have any TEDs sensors but that's pretty much what I do except I dont push a master .nce file to a network.

Either way, none of that helps when another user sets up their own test, selects a custom scale from the drop down that you're using ALSO, enters new scale values, then you fire up an existing test with the same sensor name but dont realize the sensor has been modified.

That's where the issue lies.
I'd rather have to build a custom scale each and every time I create a new project file, than have the convenience of a drop-down database.. if it meant the info was saved to the project file.
I mean, that's what we do anyway; grab a sensor that we've used in the past, select it from the drop down, edit the scales since it has new cal values since the last test.

Anyway, rather than beat this to death I'd like to think the point was made a while ago.

[Sarith]

Hi!

I used NI 9215 DAQ to acquire a voltage signal data. The data was viewed and recorded in LabVIEW SignalExpress. The logged data was of TDMS file format. I have not find any method to retrive data inoder to analyse the waveform. if there is any way of retriving data could someone please help me. 

Thank you!

[Instech87]

Were you using Signal Express 2013?  If so we discovered that if you let the Log name auto increment (as opposed to typing in the entire name yourself), the Log (tdms) file will be corrupt and you cannot graph it in Signal Express. I don't believe that this is a problem if you are using the default date/name Log name since this would be completely unique to each Log.  This would be a problem if you used a Log name ("test" for example) then reused "test" for a subsequent Log name and let Signal Express auto increment the Log name to "test 1".  There is a CAR open regarding this issue but no resolution as of yet.  Hope this helps.

[Fred_V]

We've created a KB to document this issue, and for the short-term, have attached a utility to 'uncorrupt' the corrupted logs.

Please see KnowledgeBase 6HLFDHBD: Signal Express 2013 Creating Corrupt TDMS Logs for more information and let me know if you have any questions.

Thanks,

[OKors]

What are the chances we could get the Waveform Peak Detection function added to the Analysis features in Signal Express??
I've been needing a way to monitor Peak/Valley values of a constant waveform (not to be confused with Min/Max) for a long time. Only recently I noticed there was already a VI which seems to be a good solution.