Data acquisition and logging platform for heavy industry

[LiteYear]

I'm shopping around for a platform to base a new product of our design on. The product at its heart must autonomously sample and store a number of voltage signals. In this case, the less custom development (hardware and software) the better, so we're willing to pay for off-the-shelf gear. I've found a number of contenders but none that are a perfect match for my requirements. In case I've missed any, can anyone recommend anything that might match this set of requirements?

# channels: at least 8 single ended, preferably 10 and preferably differential
voltage: +/- 10V preferable, no big deal if it's lower
sample rate: >=20kS/s per channel (this limits options severely because it requires about 200kS/s total throughput)
resolution: 12-bit is plenty
storage: >=32GB (also a limiting criteria)
triggering/scheduling/configurable gain/filtering all highly desirable

At this stage I'm entertaining any of these 3 configurations:
1. DAQ card <-> embedded PC <-> solid state storage (eg. PC/104 stack or PCI based industrial PC)
2. PC Peripheral <-> industrial PC <-> hard drive (eg. USB device and industrial PC)
3. All-in-one system (eg. Astro-Med TMX-18 or Measurement Computing LGR-5327)

The industrial PCs are not ideal because of the licensing/configuration of a suitable operating system, and the associated boot up time. But we could design around that.

So far I've identified the following potential suppliers:
Advantech (PC/104 boards for DAQ and CPU, also for industrial PCs)
DATAQ Instruments
Measurement Computing
Labjack
Astro-Med
Prosig


Any further suggestions? Would National Instruments have anything superior?

 

[LiteYear]

FWIW, I ended adding the following as potentials:

Acquitek AcquiSTREAM
NetAcquire AIO
National Instruments PXIe-6341 and controller
Graphtec GL900
United Electronic Industries UEILogger300

Hope that saves someone a couple of days of searching!

 

[Sparweb]

See if Campbell Scientific has something you like. (I have no affiliation, and I haven't even bought anything from them, yet).


STF

 

[LiteYear]

Thanks SparWeb. I did like the look of the Campbell Scientific stuff. Unfortunately not high enough data rate for our purposes. They're very well equipped in the "logger" end of the spectrum instead of the "data acquisition" end.

 

[DRWeig]

I've used stuff from these folks often, very pleased.

Not sure they can meet all your specs, but I know they can meet your speed needs. The 32 GB I've never run into, but interfacing with a USB device might be available.

http://www.mccdaq.com/

Best to you,

Goober Dave

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[DRWeig]

I just looked at MCCDAQ stuff for fun. Looks like they have a couple of higher-end models that take compact flash or SD cards. So I guess you can get your 32 GB pretty easily, maybe up to 128 GB at high speed.

Best to you,

Goober Dave

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[LiteYear]

Thanks DRWeig. Measurement Computing (MCCDAQ) was definitely on my shortlist. I ended up proposing both their USB-1208HS as a PC peripheral option, and the LGR-5327 as an all-in-one option. Good to hear of your personal experience.

 

[ScottyUK]

It's a while since I looked at Fluke's Hydra databucket and the version I last played with couldn't deal with 32GB but a year or ten have passed since then. Might be worth a look at their current-day offering with Ethernet etc.