Products in Brief
Staff -- Test & Measurement World, 2/1/2003
TEST INSTRUMENTS
Arbitrary waveform generators
Both the single-channel 8025 and dual-channel 8026 arbitrary waveform generators offer 14-bit amplitude resolution, sampling rates of up to 100 Msamples/s, and up to 4 Mwords of waveform memory. Users can access 11 standard waveforms from the front panel, including sine, triangle, square, pulse, ramp, sync, Gaussian, exponential up, exponential down, noise, and DC. The DDS-based generators boast low phase noise and 1-ppm clock stability. Base price: $2830. Tabor Electronics, Yucaipa, CA. 909-797-0484; www.taborelec.com.
Bench multimeter
Using a standard 115-VAC outlet as a power source, the Model 5491 provides two 5-½ -digit LED displays with selectable resolutions of 4000, 40,000, and 120,000 counts. The instrument has a true-rms (AC, AC+DC) measurement bandwidth of 40 Hz to 30 kHz, an AC/DC voltage range of 750/1000 V, and a maximum AC/DC current range of 12 A. Price: $595. B&K Precision, Yorba Linda, CA. 714-921-9095; www.bkprecision.com.
Tiny logic analyzer
Small enough to fit in your pocket, the Ant8 USB-powered logic analyzer samples at rates of 100 Hz to 500 MHz across eight channels. It offers an array of triggering options, including the usual pattern and edge triggers, as well as complex triggers such as occurrence counting and maximum/minimum duration measurement. It works with Windows 98/ME/2000/XP. RockyLogic, Felixstowe, UK. +44-1394-278096; www.rockylogic.com.
PC-BASED TEST
Analog input boards
Two 14-bit analog input boards, the APC341 PCI board and the AcPC341 CompactPCI board, provide 16 differential input channels grouped into two eight-channel banks. Each board can simultaneously sample an eight-channel group to achieve a 1-MHz overall throughput rate. Two 512-sample memory buffers minimize CPU overhead, while data triggering enables easy channel identification. An ActiveX controls software package is available for interfacing the boards with development programs such as Visual CRR or Visual Basic, HMI process control applications, and desktop applications used to display and record data, including Microsoft Excel and Access. Acromag, Wixom, MI. 800-881-0268; www.acromag.com.
CompactPCI/PXI digitizer cards
Two high-resolution waveform digitizers, the 14-bit Compu-Scope 14100C and the 16-bit CompuScope 1610C, allow synchronization of multiple digitizer cards in the same chassis to yield up to 16 simultaneous channels. The CompuScope 14100C samples one single-ended analog input at 100 Msamples/s and two simultaneous inputs at 50 Msamples/s. The CompuScope 1610C simultaneously samples two differential analog inputs at 10 Msamples/s. Both of the 6U CompactPCI/PXI cards come with 8 Msamples of onboard acquisition memory. Price: 1610C—$8995; 14100C—$9995. Gage Applied, Lachine, QC, Canada. 800-567-4243; www.gage-applied.com.
Multifunction VMEbus card
Offered in both air-cooled and conduction-cooled versions for operation over two temperature ranges, the 64CA3 VMEbus card has six slots that can be populated with any combination of ADC, DAC, and RTD modules. The 16-bit ADC and DAC modules supply 10 channels, while the RTD module has six channels. Onboard diagnostic functions improve system reliability and warn of malfunctions within 5 s. North Atlantic Industries, Bohemia, NY. 631-567-1100; www.naii.com.
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