Data acquisition, logging and display

[TaylorB]

Hi all, I am very new to LabVIEW and I am looking for someone who has some LabVIEW experience to check over this program provide input on if it looks like it should run fine or if there are any noticeable bugs. I am collecting type-t thermocouple data ( 8 thermocouples total) with a NI 9213 module, pressure sensor (2x) and flowmeter (x1) with general analog IO module ( NI 9205) and RTD (x2) data with RTD specific module. 

My general objective is to take in all the data from the 8 TC's, 2 RTD's and flowmeter and graphically display it and then also save the data and export to .xlsx format incase additional statistical analysis is wished to be performed in Excel. 

I attached 2 screenshots of my block diagram and one of the front panel so that the indexing and save to file feature are shown.

Also, if anyone has feedback/tips to make the program cleaner or more efficient then I would love to hear those suggestions aswell. 

Thanks for you time and help!

[cbutcher]

Well, as to bugs, it's hard to say without being able to check the program (VI).

I guess using the DAQ Assistant probably doesn't count as a bug... but you could take a look at Learn 10 Functions in NI-DAQmx and Handle 80 Percent of Your Data Acquisition Applications 🙂

Regarding the indexing, that's definitely not a good choice.

• You're dependent on 8 front panel controls, which take up space, and might have the wrong values. If the goal is to allow selecting different thermocouples, this might be useful, but I'd suggest an array rather than 8 separate controls, and the ability to use all 8 by default (perhaps by checking for an Empty Array).
• When you Index Array, if you don't connect an index, you get initially the 0th element, then the 1st, then the 2nd. If you wire only some of the indices (you can resize Index Array by dragging the node from the top/bottom edges) then the unwired values are the incremented from the last wired value (see example image below, this is a snippet, you can drag it onto a block diagram after downloading it, although it will require 2019 for the version I create)
• The blue Dynamic Data Type wires hide all sorts of information, so I don't know if you have bugs there or not...

[cbutcher]

Here's an example for checking the empty array and allowing selection (in order):