Need Data Acquisition for Pressure, Sound, and Vibration of pneumatic hand tools

[99ishvr4]

I am a new engineer at my company and I have been tasked with setting up a way to measure the pressure limits of a new pneumatic tool that we are working on. I also need to measure the sound produced from the tool, and the vibration that the user would experience in their hand.

I am a recent grad so I immediately thought of an NI Daq and Labview. However, I was somewhat shocked at their pricing and lead times, and honestly it seems overkill for what we will be using it for. I have not ruled them out completely and my company is willing to pay for the right system as long as they can get their investment out of it. However, I am looking for alternatives. I am trying to learn as much as possible about data acquisition and all the ways that have been done, but I wanted to post here and see if I could get some guidance.

We do not need complex data or programming. We will most likely be reading and recording peak measurements.

Thank you!

 

[IRstuff]

Cost of the equipment must be balanced against the cost of integration or learning curve on your part, i.e., you might spend weeks or months getting disparate hardware to work together with your software, not counting having to write and debug the software. OTOH, Labview is known to work with the hardware it supports, so it's more plug and play, and there's less software to write, since the supported hardware tends to come with parametrically driven drivers for data acquisition.

There are lots of resources on the web for rolling your own data acquisition systems, and books

https://www.amazon.com/Real-World-I...ld+instrumentation+with+python,aps,149&sr=8-1

Arduino

https://www.digikey.com/en/maker/pr...binho-for-ml/bf39a39f07d145d297e60c0e1f257db3

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[MintJulep]

You really need to define your requirements before you go buying expensive instrumentation.

"Measure the pressure limits" - Limits of what? Until it explodes? What's wrong with a simple pressure gauge? Or a slightly less simple gauge with a max hold feature?

"Measure the sound produced" - Cheap sound meters are cheap. Expensive sound meters can be rented cheaply.

"Vibration the user would experience" - Hand-Arm vibration meters are a thing. Not tremendously expensive, and can likely be rented as well.

 

[jotunn]

Hardware vs. software.

Hardware: MintJulep is on it...What do you want to measure? What resolution do you want to measure it at (both ADC resolution and sample rate)? We cannot answer this for you. Once you define the parameters, recommendations will be easier. Certainly, NI is on the high end of the cost spectrum.

Software: Labview isn't super pricey in the grand scheme of things...but they have adopted the irritating subscription model. If not labview, I'd probably lean DasyLAB as a generic recommendation...but, like hardware, much depends on what you actually need.

 

[99ishvr4]

I am sorry for the vagueness before. I have thought about this testing more and what I would like to do is be able to measure the output of the pneumatic tool, a caulking gun, compared to the trigger position. Ideally the caulk would output linearly with the position of the trigger.

Ideally, I would have a pressure transducer at the caulk gun and a way to measure the position of the trigger. I am thinking linear potentiometer. I would like to be able to plot data from both of these on a chart and I am trying ton find the simplest way to do it.

I am forgoing the sound and vibration testing at this time.

 

[IRstuff]

Most caulking guns aren't particularly linear

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[MintJulep]

Wouldn't your need the mass or volume flow rate of the caulk?

Isn't performance dependant on the caulk properties?

After you have collected the data, what's next? Who is the audience?

 

[99ishvr4]

MintJulep,

Mass flow rate is another test I will be doing.

The results of the test is for our own R&D. The test will be a comparison of our product and others in the market.

 

[0707]

Sound noise and vibration

 

[IRstuff]

It looks to me like flow is proportional to square root of pressure, so there's going to be a lot of nonlinearity with trigger. In some cases, the caulking material may be thixotropic.

https://adhesives.specialchem.com/t... mastic,generally referred to as thixotropes.

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