Welcome to the Adept Scientific Press Room

In response to a growing demand for PC-based data acquisition to be made even easier to use, Adept Scientific has put together what it reckons is a package which can be used ‘out-of-the-box’.

This consists of a DynaRes series plug-and-play PCI board, 3 feet of cable, a screw terminal/signal conditioning pod, and DaqView software for Windows. Users simply fit the board into their PCs, attach their sensors to the terminal unit, and install the software: data acquisition can begin within minutes, even for inexperienced users. The DynaRes boards handle high-accuracy, high speed, temperature, voltage, frequency and pulse counting measurements, and offer digital I/O and analogue output. All power is derived from the PC, so there is no need for external power supplies. All inputs and outputs are accessed via convenient screw terminals located on the signal conditioning pod.

The cover of this is easily removable to gain access to the screw terminals for signal connections. DaqView software for Windows lets users easily set up all hardware, acquisition, and display parameters, without programming, via a simple spreadsheet-style screen which even the novice user will find intuitive. The software lets you verify the system’s connections, allows data to be saved to disk at up to 100 ksamples/sec, and offers a graphic display, all in real time. There are even some useful triggering facilities.

On the hardware side, cold-junction compensation is built-in, providing highly accurate thermocouple measurements, with channel-to-channel variation and noise typically less than 0.2C, and absolute accuracy typically better than 1.0C. This is accomplished by having a separate low-noise, bandwidth- limited amplifier per thermocouple channel (of which either 7 or 14 are available). In addition to thermocouple inputs, DynaRes also provides 7 differential voltage input channels, with 16 bit resolution and programmable full scale input ranges from ±156 mV to ±10V. The 4 frequency input channels can measure frequency or count pulses up to 10 MHz.

Two timer output channels are capable of generating square outputs up to 1 MHz. Twenty four digital I/O lines are also included, which can be programmed in 8-bit groups as either inputs or outputs. All inputs, including TC inputs, voltage, frequency and digital, are scanned at 200,000 readings per second, providing accurate time correlation between all inputs.

Optional 16- bit/100-kHz analogue outputs can be used to generate waveforms, with a virtually infinite waveform output length possible from PC memory.

IOTech hardware and software is supplied and supported in the UK by Adept Scientific plc, Amor Way, Letchworth, Herts. SG6 1ZA; telephone (01462) 480055, fax (01462) 480213, email daq@adeptscience.co.uk; or see Adept’s World Wide Web site at http://www. adeptscience.co.uk. adeptscience.co.uk/.

With offices in the UK, USA, Germany and throughout the Nordic region, Adept Scientific is one of the world’s leading suppliers of software and hardware products for research, scientific, engineering and technical applications on desktop computers.