Saturday, March 18, 2017

PXI octal analog out

Trying to find a solution for needing 20 low-current power lines to a device that will fit in my National Instruments PXIe chassis and work with Labview.

Trying the PXIe-4322 octal analog output card. It's a beautiful design, with all outputs fully isolated from chassis ground and each other, nice voltage ranges, not a lot of current sourcing capability but I don't need that. However, the card does not include the capability to monitor the output voltages and currents, I guess that's too much to ask for a 1U PXI card that already has 8 outputs!
The support page for the PXIe-4322. Disappointed by the lack of Labview example code listed. http://sine.ni.com/psp/app/doc/p/id/psp-1224/lang/en
The PXIe-4322 top-level page: http://www.ni.com/en-us/support/model.pxie-4322.html
The user manual: http://www.ni.com/pdf/manuals/373754a.pdf

Marvin Test Solutions has an awesome power supply card with 8 outputs. It's actually just 3 separate power rails, and it's not clear what the isolation between them is, although it is interesting that each power rail can be externally supplied. But, again, no output power monitoring. That's what I get for trying to get a cheap multi-output power supply by cheating.
MTS's catalog page for the GX1838 card: https://www.marvintest.com/Product.aspx?model=GX1838+Series

Pickering has a bunch of kick-ass power supplies and battery simulators. Given that these haven't been fully investigated yet, here are some links for me to check later to figure out what kind of output isoloation and monitoring they might have:
Power Supplies: http://www.pickeringtest.com/en-us/products/pxi/chassis-instrumentation/power-supply-battery-simulation/power-supplies
Battery Simulators, including their popular 6 battery simulator: http://www.pickeringtest.com/en-us/products/pxi/chassis-instrumentation/power-supply-battery-simulation/battery-simulators