Data acquisition and storage

Mauri, every data acquisition system has (at least) three critical parameters which you need to address.

The speed of the acquisition (how fast you need to acquire samples)

The precision of the samples in bits.

The accuracy (not the same as precision) of the samples.

Some details of your application would also be helpful to solicit suggestions from the CR4 braintrust. More details?

Try to look at a tiny computer called 'Arduino' which is inexpensive, programmable using C, no boot at restart, includes both digital inputs and analog A/D. I've used it. It works!

Hi Dovy: I bought the Arduino, programmed it and solved my problem. It took me a while, but now my project is complete and I wanted to thank you for the good advice ! Bye, Mauri

Sounds like a fairly simple automation project.

Have a look at omega automation.com Good value for these samll operations

• Reads 3 serial ports -get a PLC that has 4 serial ports as an option
• Reads a DC tension and digitizes it -you'll need an analog input for this
• Copies the four sets of above data in a hard disk as it receives them-How much data are you storing? You'll need to set up some type of historian if the data is going to be large. Conversely many PLCs will store some data that can later be downloaded to a jump drive (USB memory stick)
• Transmits the same set of four data via fiber optic-Use the remaining serial port to drive a serial port to fibre converter or see if you can get a PLC that has a fibre connection directly.

AVG

Uticor

EZAutomation

All found at www.AVG.net

Let me design a system for you. Expand on the parameters of what you are trying to record, ex. tension, count, pressure, temp, time etc. I can do all of this over ethernet. Wired, fiber optic, wireless! Give me a specification?