Is labview the right software for me to test a cam shaft position sensor(FAST sensor)?

[deceased]

What are the other measurements you need to take? Without knowing this, its difficult to know what hardware will be best.

[Titen]

Hi HamzaR,

I would recommend giving a call to one of our sales engineers. They can discuss your application and provide insight into what software and hardware would be helpful for your specific project needs. 

You can reach them by calling (888) 280-7645.

Alternatively, you can contact them through email here.

[markmakeitso]

I'd agree. For most engine sensors the exact crank/cam position is largely irrelevant, and you'd be fighting a variety of delays unnecessarily. The only real exception I can think of is in-cylinder pressure testing, a task with generally much more than a $200 budget ($250, easy). Even then I've found the most success with sampling multiple channels together (cam & crank position sensors, transducer, etc) then finding TDC and other important events from the block of samples.

So far nothing mentioned has precluded doing most of the tasks directly on the Arduino either. 60k S/s isn't too tough for microcontrollers, and an interrupt handler on input pins would make it even easier.

[HamzaR]

 in-cylinder pressure testing

Thats exactly why i want it 

>What are the other measurements you need to take? Without knowing this, its difficult to know what hardware will be best.

[markmakeitso]

Aha, very good.

On my last project we had different options depending on what we were looking at. Lots of hardware will split the max sampling rate between however many channels are active, so there is a benefit to not gathering data that isn't needed.

Simplest setup: Only transducer voltages, calculate RPM from time between local pressure peaks, or through another method (CAN, etc). Not real great for precision tuning, but rather capable for many tasks. You can also add camshaft or crankshaft position data (we collected as analog inputs, although digital would have been possible, just more programming work). Injector and ignition coil power can also be added if you'd like to mix in fuel pulse widths or timing advance analysis. You'll probably have your hands full with a single cylinder, but eventually you could branch out to covering more also. Diminishing returns there unless there are compelling reasons to do so.

I'd recommend doing as much as possible onboard a single Arduino honestly. Sample whatever inputs are necessary, store onboard, and send data to PC at your relative leisure. Do the heavy crunching there, along with display and storage. The normal Arduino Uno/Mega ADC rate isn't very fast, around 10k S/s I believe. There are a bunch of tricks to bump that up though, so you could be okay.

I could post some more later, if you aren't already tired of my blathering. Or PM me and I can give a few more suggestions on hardware if you'd like.

Have fun,

Mark

[deceased]

If you do go with the arduino, I recomment using an external counter chip that you can configure over SPI. I think NXP make some but I would have to check to find the model numer. Some are designed as quadrature counters, but if you dont have a quad encoder you can often just configure them a s a 32 bit counter.

Make the counter chip keep track of the count and trigger an interrupt pin on the arduino when the count is reached.

Polling at fast rates on the arduino isnt good. Fast pulse rates are a pain even attaching interrupts becomes a burden because you are in the ISR so often.