• Author Author: rscasny
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Seeking Feedback: What Would You Design, Test or Build with a Thermocouple Measurement System from National Instruments?

rscasny

Greetings.

 

Last week, I had a great conversation with one of our managers concerning a thermocouple test system bundle. It combines data acquisition hardware and software from National Instruments and thermocouples from Omega. I learned it's entry-level 4-channel USB thermocouple measurement system.

 

Here are a few features of the system:

 

  • NI quality data acquisition hardware for confidence in your test data
  • FlexLogger data logging software to get you from sensor to data, fast
  • Configure a custom UI with graphs, charts, and alarm indicators
  • Set trigger conditions for alarms and logging
  • Add operator input panels to capture test meta data
  • Save to file formats for Excel (.csv) or the open binary standard .tdms so you can use with any in-house software
  • A modular, 1-slot chassis so you can change your measurement system as easy as you can change modules. Reuse the chassis and software with any of the 80+ other CompactDAQ compatible C Series modules from NI

 

In the following table, I list the parts in the bundle, along with the datasheets:

 

NININIOmega

Temp Input module

(NI) Temperature Input Module, C Series, NI-9210, 14 SPS, 24 bit, 4 Input, CompactDAQ/RIO System, Mini TC

Datasheet

For More InformationFor More Information

chassiss

Chassis, cDAQ-9171, CompactDAQ System, 1 Slot, USB

 

 

Datasheet

For More InformationFor More Information

flexlogger

Test Software, FlexLogger, Subscription License, Download, Windows

 

Datasheet

For More InformationFor More Information

omega thermocouple

Thermocouple, K, 260 °C, 36 ", 900 mm

 

 

Datasheet

For More information

 

In my conversation, we talked about getting some of these product bundles for either a roadtest, design competition, or special project. I wanted to put this out to the community to get your feedback and some ideas of what you would do with this Thermocouple Measurement System.

 

Discussion Question: What Would You Design, Test or Build with a Thermocouple Measurement

  • 4 inputs... Test the efficiency of an engine block heater system.  Given that we're moving into colder weather here in North America, keeping emergency backup generator engines ready to start and take load - it's kind of an important thing.

    The four values:   Ambient, heater discharge, engine coolant (block), return coolant.  It would be best to tie this to charting current (heater) draw as well.

    The next step up for these systems is a circulating pump instead of their normal convection circulation.  Lather, rinse, repeat.

     

    Other options:

    Functionality of radiator systems:  Most of the radiators I work on are both engine coolant (liquid) and charge air (air-to-air).  Test inlet and return on both for 0, 30, 50, 75 and 100 % load.

    Combustion air system:  Ambient, cylinder intake air, charge air before the charge air cooler, and exhaust.  Test at 0, 30, 50, 75 and 100 percent loads.

    *30, 50 and 75 percent loads are mandated load testing levels for required emergency systems at hospitals, fire stations, life safety applications, etc. in the US.

  • I have heard about the NI HW and SW, but I never had a chance to actually use it for an application.

     

    I would really like to see real examples of its use, usability, and flexibility for setting up automated testing capability.

     

    DAB

  • Interesting product..

    This could be quite handy for machine learning tasks, if it were attached to (say) a Raspberry Pi or some other low-power machine, and then just capture tons of temperature data over a week within a room.. and either use something like a PIR sensor directly attached to the Pi, or attach a circuit to misuse one of the temperature channels to receive the PIR sensor events - or use any input on the cDAQ chassis - it wasn't entirely clear but maybe it might have a bit of I/O on the chassis.

     

    Then, you've got a nice dataset for training, for classifying the presence or absence of humans, purely on temperature fluctuations.

    Ideally in a real-life situation you'd want several of these units and several Pi's to perform the acquisition in multiple locations over long periods to start getting get lots of diverse data quickly.

     

    Another use-case would be schools/uni (or actually any mobile use).. attached to a tablet or mobile phone, this could be used for experiments/measurements indoors or outdoors. No idea what the USB protocol is though, and if there is already any mobile app for it. This would probably need the support of NI to make it happen, depends how willing they are to share the protocol detail to allow the app development. But maybe they've already thought of this and implemented a sample mobile app.

    The environmental info in the datasheet actually looks good but it states for indoor use only. However I'm sure it could be easily ruggedised slightly and be more suitable for outdoor use,within a backpack or other sort of bag/case. If they have not already thought of it, I'm sure there's bound to be business cases for having one version of chassis designed to be more ruggedised, or even a leather case with strap or something, with space for the phone/tablet.

  • Wouldn't be bad to monitor different regions of a fridge/freezer ... or a computer, power supply or other electronics where they generate heat and have multiple heatsinks.

     

    Another application might perhaps be in conjunction with testing soldering irons by instrumenting a copper plane with thermocouples and watching how the heat spreads over time.

     

    - Gough

  • I do a lot of work with exothermic reactions and need to measure ambient and substrate reaction temperature, alarm for over-temperature states, and record parameters to adjust for future runs.  This would be a great platform to control, measure, and record data.