Only if I had Known

[RJE]

Hello

New to Azeotech and I wish I would have found this before I purchased a NI USB-6008 DAQ module. I have NI Signal Express and the USB module has some pretty good specs which drove my purchase decision.

But DAQFactory is the sort of program that is what I need to gather, display and log data. My first goal was to monitor home power use with the NI 6008 but Signal Express is really not meant for that on a long term basis.

I have been reading the manual supplied with the trial version and it says that NI DAQ modules are supported, would the USB-6008 be included?

I have also read the serial comm manual and it seems that I may also take in data from my Applied Digital Ocelot home control system that does temp and humidity sensing.

Thanks

[AzeoTech]

Currently the NI stuff is only supported under NIDAQ and I think the USB modules require NIDAQmx. We've made a little headway on an NIDAQmx driver, but National Instruments really designed it for use with their products and made it difficult to use efficiently with anyone else's. You may want to consider just purchasing a LabJack U3 which probably offers similar cabilities for around $100 and is directly supported by DAQFactory.

[RJE]

I was afraid of that, the USB-6008 uses NIDAQmx.

After ordering my USB-6008 I also found the Labjack units but after reading their specs I didn't think they had enough horsepower to do sinewave level power calculations, the other reason I opted for the NI product.

I would imagine it would be possible to let Signal Express crunch the numbers from the USB-6008 signals on one computer and then have DAQFactory running on another computer get the results over ethernet.

All is not lost though, I managed using the trial version to pull data out of my Ocelot home controller over RS232. My next question would be regarding package I/O, if I create a new RS232 polling routine for the Ocelot which basically asks for a bank of data, 256 bytes returned in LSB & MSB pairs, which has to be parsed out to individual channels is that considered 1 I/O point?

So far I'm liking this DAQFactory. Thanks.

[AzeoTech]

I don't know about that. Even the U3 does 50Khz which is more than enough unless your sinewaves are more than maybe 12khz. Maybe you were looking a the older U12 specs?

Anyhow, I/O points are determined by total Channels. If you take the 256 bytes and put that data into 128 channels, then it is 128 I/O points and would require DAQFactory Standard.

[RJE]

Oh crap, I was looking at the U12 and the U3 actually seems a touch better than the USB-6008 for about the same price at my door.

So one channel of data is equal to one I/O point. Well I don't think I could swing the Standard package past the wife but maybe the Lite package. They just don't understand that guys have to measure things and make graphs of it.

Thanks for your help, I have a lot of learning to do.

[AzeoTech]

Well, keep your eyes on our site in February as we probably will have something new that might interest you.

[andybdjuk]

Hi RJE, i saved up to buy DacFactory Standard edition (same as you, wife thing) and not look back it will do what you want and much much more. im into alternitive energy and home control and its all been done with Dacfactory and U12. I have now got into Modbus etc.

And when you need help Guru is here and has never let me down.

Ps, i am only a customer and have nothing to do with Aziotech, just my experiance.

Andy