PC Data Acquisition

Tim Wescott · 2013-03-13T16:44:58+00:00

This is slightly OT for all the groups I'm posting to, but something many of you should have done. I have a need to sample one channel of data at between 200 and 2000 samples per second, 12 bits or so, and store it away. The signal happens to be on a 4-40mA line already, to make life easy for getting off-the-shelf hardware. I need to store hours of guaranteed-uninterrupted data, or failing that, store data that's timestamped at the measuring device (not just in the PC software) so that I can see what's missing and deal with it. (dropouts of even a half second or so would be OK, as long as the timestamps are correct). The mental model I'm carrying around is a laptop PC, connected to some little box via USB, quietly buzzing away in a corner making multi- megabyte files with the information I want. I assume that this is a no-brainer with National Instruments hardware and software -- am I correct? If not, is there a solution that you can recommend? Do you have a favorite other than NI? TIA.