VTI Instruments Blog

If you are building a data acquisition system with instruments from one or more vendors, you probably expect you will need to install one or more drivers. Such drivers are operating-system-specific, so you must choose the appropriate 32- or 64-bit versions for your Linux or Windows platform, which most data-acquisition instrument makers support. What they don’t tend to support, however, are drivers for mobile operating systems, so if you want to initiate a measurement sequence to examine some acquired data using your smartphone, you’re out of luck.

Sky-high energy prices will motivate consumers to seek out the most efficient appliances. You can attract these consumers’ attention by earning, for example, Energy Star certification in the United States. Whether or not you pursue such certifications, the United States, the European Union, and other jurisdictions require that you include a label on your white-goods product indicating its efficiency relative to competitive products. To substantiate your product's rating, you will need extensive data sets—representing voltage, current, temperature, humidity, and other parameters.

Operating expenditures can be substantial over the operating lifetime of a high-channel-count data acquisition (DAQ) system. Consider all the aspects that can contribute to operating costs, ranging from setup and wiring to expenses you can incur if a lengthy test needs to be redone because of a faulty sensor or a network crash. When choosing a DAQ system, carefully evaluate how you can significantly reduce such operating costs with a very slight increase in up-front capital expenditures—in short, nudge up CAPEX to slash OPEX.

You need better sensors. Why? Because a single bad sensor could cause your functional tests to fail, wasting millions of dollars if you are testing something like a missile or a jet engine in a one-shot destructive test. A failed test is not even the worst-case scenario. Imagine what is at stake if a bad sensor gives you a false positive, leading to your device failing out in the field – all of which could have been avoided by getting the right sensors.  

Signal integrity matters. Whether you’re designing a new jet engine or building a medical-grade freezer, you need bulletproof testing to ensure that your products are up to spec. The only way to do that is through proper data acquisition systems with uncompromised signal integrity.

Thermocouples are without a doubt the most popular type of temperature sensor, and the VTI Instruments EX1000A Precision Voltage Measurement Instrument Series provides 48 voltage channels and supports Type J, K, T, E, S, R, B, and N thermocouples. To help you avoid some common pitfalls when making thermocouple measurements and get the most out of your instrument, we offer the following tips:

When accuracy really counts, you should make four-wire resistance measurements. Sometimes referred to as the Kelvin method, the four-wire resistance method is often used in automated test applications where long cable lengths, numerous connections, or switches exist between the digital multimeter (DMM) and the device under test (DUT).

Testing that requires the use of strain gages often consume large amounts of resources and effort to prepare for. One way to reduce the amount of time and energy spent configuring a test is to use sensors that support the Transducer Electronic Data Sheet (TEDS) interface. Many VTI measurement instruments support TEDS sensors including the EX1629 48-channel high-performance strain gage measurement instrument, EX1403 16-channel bridge/strain gage instrument, and the RX1024 24-channel bridge/strain gage instrument.

Although thermocouples are the most commonly used temperature sensor in test applications, a close second is the resistance-temperature detector, or RTD. RTDs operate on the principle that the resistivity of a metal is proportional to its temperature. The higher the temperature, the higher the resistivity.

For many test applications, measuring the temperature is a necessity. For example, when testing an aircraft engine, you may need to measure manifold temperature or the exhaust gas temperature. To help you take those measurements, VTI Instruments offers a number of options, including the EX1000A series of precision voltage measurement instruments and the RX1032 rugged thermocouple measurement system.

Thermocouples are arguably the most common type of temperature sensor, although you can also use resistance temperature detectors (RTDs), or thermistors. The EX1000A series supports all three types of sensors, while the RX1032 supports only thermocouples.