Bellevue, WA, June 9, 2006 - Microstar Laboratories, Inc., maker of Data Acquisition Processor (DAP) boards and systems now has included interactive filter design in its DAPstudio measurement software. That means you can build and run applications based on the Signal Conditioning System (SCS) series with no other data acquisition software required. The field-proven SCS series connects directly to your sensors and to one or more specialized DAP boards (iDSC 1816 boards) in one or more PCs to give you as many channels as you need of filtered 16-bit resolution simultaneously sampled data logged directly to disk.
Scalable
Commercially available off-the-shelf PCs and associated disk controllers and drives have enough electrical power and enough computing power for a single PC to form a balanced network node with four iDSC 1816 boards and an SCS-32. A network node like this can continuously log to disk all 32 channels of conditioned anti-aliased data at the full data acquisition rate of 153.6k samples per second per channel - an overall rate of just under 5 million samples per second. An additional synchronization board in each PC allows a number of PCs like this on a network to work as a single synchronized system with as many channels as you need.
Signal Conditioning
An SCS package provides direct connection to sensors, and offers many signal-conditioning services in a single convenient, powerful package. These include * current sensor excitation: 4 mA at up to 28 Volts * voltage sensor excitation: 1, 2, 5, and 10 Volts at up to 70 mA * quarter-, half-, and full-bridge resistor networks * 120 and 350 Ohm resistors as standard options * any value resistor networks, sensor by sensor * 10 full-scale options: 10 mV, 20 mV, 50 mV, 100 mV, 200 mV, 500 mV, and 1, 2, 5, and 10 Volts * available offset ranges from between ±0.5V to ±5V, depending on the input option range used * programmable gain with auto-calibration * programmable AC/DC coupling for ICP sensors * two high-resolution acquisition-synchronized timing channels per iDSC 1816
Filters
Before a signal reaches the analog-to-digital conversion stage on an iDSC 1816 board, it passes through an analog filter - on each channel - that takes out all frequencies above the Nyquist frequency. The subsequent digital waveform is therefore free of any alias frequencies that otherwise would corrupt the data. Onboard intelligence directs digital signal processing of the waveforms corresponding to filter designs you create interactively with DAPstudio. Valid cutoff frequencies fall in the range 2% to 80% of Nyquist. Above 50% of Nyquist, resulting filters roll off at better than 96 dB per quarter-octave.
Conclusion and Next Step
The SCS and iDSC 1816 hardware costs - excluding PC costs - range from around US$1000 per channel. DAPstudio measurement software costs US$199. You can download the full version for a free trial. Use it - without hardware - to view any binary data files and to design filters. The company offers a CD that contains all software and hardware manuals for all products, including DAPstudio.
You also can access all these manuals online. And you can order demonstration hardware that costs you nothing - unless you decide to keep it.
Editorial Overview:
You now can design filters that roll off at better than 96dB per quarter octave. The latest version of DAPstudio measurement software from Microstar Laboratories, maker of Data Acquisition Processor (DAP) boards, lets you do this as well as build and run applications based on the Signal Conditioning System (SCS) series with no other data acquisition software required. The SCS connects directly to your sensors and to one or more specialized DAP boards (iDSC 1816 boards) in PCs to give you as many channels as you need of filtered 16-bit resolution data (±10mV to ±10V). It offers many signal-conditioning services in a single convenient package. SCS/iDSC hardware costs - excluding PC costs - range from around US$1000 per channel.
DAPstudio costs US$199. You can download the full version for a free trial. Use it - without hardware - to view any binary data files and to design filters.
