How does the NI 9403 operate in Flexlogger.

[cmoffitt]

I wanted to understand the mode of operations for the NI 9403 when using with Flexlogger.  My overall goal is to use this module to monitor on/off states of electrical components (solenoids, contractors, switches) with signal conditioning back to the NI 9403.  Pretty sure that is not going to be a issue but my questions are the following for different scenarios:

1.  Can this device monitor inputs on select channels and drive outputs on others?

2.   Can this device monitor one type of measurement (PWM) on one channel and a different kind (rise/fall) on another channel?

[BriBear · Accepted solution]

The NI 9403 is a serial digital module and is subject to the considerations detailed here. These considerations would apply to the hardware in FlexLogger, LabVIEW, etc.

FlexLogger supports static (on demand) output and dynamic (hardware-timed) input measurements. Because you cannot do both static and timed tasks at the same time on a serial module such as the 9403, you would not be able to monitor inputs and drive outputs from a single NI 9403 module. In FlexLogger, you would be able to either select all channels of a single NI 9403 as either all input or all output. A parallel module, such as the NI 9402, can do both digital input and digital output simultaneously within FlexLogger. 

Digital input can measure state (High/ Low). I wouldn't recommend using a digital module in FlexLogger for PWM as the digital modules currently do not have access to the chassis internal counters. FlexLogger does support some counter measurements, including pulse width, using the NI 9361 counter module.

[cmoffitt]

Thank you for the clarification.  I have one more question.  I have a NI 9361 counter module too, I was hoping to monitor flowmeters and other encoders while monitoring on/off states of devices with the 9403.  If I use both the 9403 and 9361 in the same chassis they would require there own timing engine, correct?

[BriBear]

No problem! Since it sounds like you're already familiar with cDAQ chassis timing engines, I'll say that the NI 9403 will use the DI timing engine, and the NI 9361 actually uses an AI timing engine behind the scenes since it does not access the chassis onboard counters. In FlexLogger, that's exposed by the counter input module using the Medium data rate in FlexLogger.