alternative to mxi2?

[M Schuetze]

Greetings. I am looking for an upgrade to our current VXI control architecture.
Specifically, I'd like to replace the double-bundled cable that runs between
our PCI-MXI2 card and our VXI slot 0 controller with a fiber optic cable.
Does
anyone know of such a solution, preferably using NI products, but
not necessarily? Thanks.

--Matt

[Ron Drees]

"M Schuetze" wrote:
>>Greetings. I am looking for an upgrade to our current VXI control architecture.>Specifically,
I'd like to replace the double-bundled cable that runs between>our PCI-MXI2
card and our VXI slot 0 controller with a fiber optic cable.>Does>anyone
know of such a solution, preferably using NI products, but >not necessarily?
Thanks. >>--Matt

Matt - NI is only offering the fiber-based MXI-3 interface for PXI/CompactPCI
right now, though they did demonstrate a MXI-3 to VXI interface at one of
last year's trade shows. If they ever get around to offering that interface
for VXI that would probably be what you want. Agilent is now offering a
Fibre channel VXI interface, but I don't know much about it.
In the mean time, your only other
option for a non-bulky cable interface
is the NI 1394 Firewire to VXI interface (I believe Agilent makes one too).
The cable is small and the mass transfer rate comparable to MXI-2. Non-block
transfer rates (which are typically what you have in most systems IMO) are
much slower than MXI-2 however.

On the otherhand, if you have multi-chassis VXI systems and need to bus the
trigger busses between chassis, MXI-2 will remain your only choice.

Hope this helps,
R.D.