Test and Measurement Forum

Hi,

I’m new to your data acquisition systems but I’m building an engine dynamometer and the picolog 1012 has captured my interest. I need to pull signals from one load cell, two or more thermocouples, a Hall Effect transducer, and other additional sensors (these may include pressure sensors and environmental sensors). At minimum I will always need 4 channels but I do not expect to ever need more than 8. The highest sampling rate I need from the load cell, and the thermocouples, is 1kS/s and possibly 10kS/s from the transducer. I’m not sure what voltage the sensors will be operating at but I’m expecting to adjust the requirements as necessary. The logging could take up to 5 minutes but I’m willing to write my own software if picolog software will have memory issues. Also, I have read that some of your units perform signal smoothing to compensate for noise but I have not seen this in association with the 1012. Does the 1012 compensate for noise or is this a primary difference between this model and others. If the 1012 is not ideal for my needs please recommend a better solution.

Thanks

Hi and thank you for your post.

Depending on your exact requirements we have equipment that can do most of what you are looking for.

In terms of the thermocouples you can use the USB-TC08 this can taken multiple inputs from thermocouples, however the quickest you will be able to sample for 2 channels will be just over 400ms intervals (200ms for cold junction and 100ms per channel).

In terms of the load cell, this depends on what output it provides. If you have an amplified single ended output this can then be fed to something like the Picolog1000 which can stream at up to 100ks/s (for one channel if you were to write your own software, the sampling rate will be multiplexed depending on the number of channels, i.e. 10 channels at 10kS/s).

With all your other inputs as long as you can measure a voltage that is within the input range of the device then this should be no problem.

The only kind of filtering the Picolog1000 has is its Analog Bandwidth which is DC to 70kHz.

Hope this helps.

Kind regards