January 9, 2014. HBM Inc., a manufacturer of data-acquisition systems and analysis and calibration software, strain gauges, and transducers and sensors, has added real-time data calculation capabilities to its 1-kV card. A new isolated 1-kV data acquisition card lets the data recorders perform real time calculations on the fly, while allowing users to view results immediately. In contrast, other devices require the use of post-processing software to view analysis results later rather than in real-time.
The new card also lets Genesis High Speed recorders calculate more precise results. Many data recorders provide an average value for a block of data over a certain time period. The 1kV card, instead, provides values per half cycle at sampling rates of up to 2 million samples/second at voltages up to + 1000 V. Users can therefore see dynamic data such as currents and voltages produced when an electric motor is accelerated, for example. This capability helps engineers more easily meet design goals for optimization and efficiency. The new card is also useful in safety tests for the aviation industry as well as in the monitoring of generators and inverters, all applications that require millions of data points to be acquired, stored, and visualized.
The system’s sampling rate can be automatically switched following a trigger event in the real time calculation channels. Maximum sampling rates are therefore then only used for particularly critical measurement events. This results in smaller data files, so that testing becomes significantly more efficient.
“Genesis’ new 1kV card can provide powerful measurement and processing capabilities to handle demanding applications that call for analysis of millions of data points,” said Walt Farchmin, HBM’s director of instrumentation sales, North America. “It opens a wide range of exciting applications for our customers, such as supporting real-time RMS calculations, a capability available on no other data recorder in the industry,” he said.
The Genesis 1kV card ensures fast and secure processing of large data sets, improving how the software streams data to memory and are displayed to the user. For instance, calculations at high speed for values such as true RMS value (True RMS), minimum/maximum/mean value, peak-to-peak, area, and energy, can now be calculated in real time.