DAP Boards eliminate ground currents and phase errors.
Press Release Summary:
Featuring 8 single-ended analog outputs, each with isolated ground, MSXB 076 Data Acquisition Processor (DAP) boards include onboard processor running real-time OS. Twenty boards in 19 in. rack-mountable enclosure can connect to single DAP board and provide total of 160 channels of analog output expansion. Boards allow users to communication with and control them from DAPstudio and also independently synchronize their clocks to work as networked DAQ system.
Original Press Release:
160 Analog Outputs with Isolated Grounds Simultaneous Updates: No Phase Errors
Bellevue, WA, June 26, 2007 - You now can eliminate two serious potential problems - ground currents and phase errors - from analog outputs in your applications. Microstar Laboratories, Inc., maker of Data Acquisition Processor (DAP) boards, today announced a new board to complement its growing family of analog and digital signal-conditioning expansion boards that make it easy to implement signal conditioning in data acquisition systems. The new board - part number MSXB 076 - includes eight single-ended analog outputs, with an isolated ground for each output. Twenty boards in a 19-inch rack-mountable industrial enclosure can connect to a single DAP board and provide a total of 160 channels of isolated analog output expansion. Of course, as output boards, these new models do not themselves include signal conditioning. They do, however, share significant aspects of the new engineering design implemented in the input boards in the signal-conditioning family that they complement. Specifically, they offer high signal density, they enable high channel counts, they include an isolated ground for each channel, and they allow for simultaneous updates across all channels.
Channel Architecture
MSXB 076 boards slot into a backplane in a standard industrial enclosure like other signal-conditioning products that conform to the external hardware specifications of the Microstar Laboratories channel architecture:
signal connectors on 3U (100mm high) Eurocard B (220mm deep) boards - Eurocards - that often pre-process a signal. A backplane connector on each board connects it to a digital backplane factory-fitted into the industrial enclosure. An interface board that also plugs into the backplane receives digitized waveforms from a DAP board in a PC.
Synchronized Systems
Every DAP board includes an onboard processor running a real-time operating system that Windows applications that support DLL calls can communicate with
- and control. You can communicate with and control a DAP board from DAPstudio - a Windows application from Microstar Laboratories - as well as from third-party (or your own) software. DAP boards also communicate among themselves independently of Windows to synchronize their clocks with one another. They then all work synchronously as a networked data acquisition system. So, even if your application has hundreds - or maybe thousands - of analog outputs on MSXB 076 boards distributed over a network, all these output channels update simultaneously, as a single synchronized system. And none of these channels introduce noise from ground currents.
Conclusion and Next Step
When each signal should have an isolated ground, when eliminating phase differences matters, when compact packaging helps, and when your application has - or could have - many channels, take a look at the synchronized PC-based data acquisition and control systems produced by Microstar Laboratories. New analog output expansion boards announced by the company let you build systems with 160 channels of isolated analog output expansion on MSXB 076 boards in a single 19-inch rack-mountable industrial enclosure connected to a DAP board controlled by PC software. And these systems are scalable. The company will supply evaluation hardware and software at no charge. You can download a full version of the latest DAPstudio software to evaluate it. You do not need DAP hardware to try out some of the features of DAPstudio. To try out all of its features, you will need demo hardware. Call Microstar Laboratories for this. The MSXB 076 board costs US$695, and is available now.
Microstar Laboratories, Inc. claims Microstar Laboratories, Data Acquisition Processor, DAP, DAPL, DAPcell, and DAPstudio as trademarks. Other organizations may claim - or may have registered - as trademarks any trade names, logos, and service marks that appear in this document but not in the list above.
Microstar Laboratories makes it a practice to use an appropriate symbol at the first occurrence of a trademark or registered trademark name in a document, or to include trademark statements like this with the document.
