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temperature measurement pt100 daq

What does "the responsible of the project" mean?

 

CEBailey gave you the information you needed.  The USB-6009 can only measure voltage.  Since you are trying to measure current, what you need to do is convert current to a voltage drop.  You do that by running the current through a resistor.  But a precision 250 ohm resistor across the input of the channel you are using on the USB and its common.  Feed the positive side of the current loop to the input of the channel, and the negative side to ground.  Now a 20 mA current causes a 5V drop across a 250 ohm resistor.  A 4 mA current causes a 1 V drop.

 

Now its just a matter of scaling the 1 to 5 V reading to the min to max temperature range.  That is just basic math.  I would double check your formula because that y=2000x - 1e-14 just doesn't make sense.

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OK, Sergymax, let us try this in four steps, if you are still confused.

 

First step: get 24 volts worth of batteries, maybe two 12 volt lantern batteries in series and have a red wire connected to the positive end and a black wire connected to the negative end, so you have 24 volts DC on a red and black wire. Find a 250 ohm resistor. Get a yellow piece of wire. Your temperature measurement device has two terminals on it , + and -, for the 4 to 20 mA current loop. Connect the red wire from the batteries to the + terminal of the temperature measurement device. Connect the yellow wire from the - terminal of the temperature measurement device to one end of the 250 ohm resistor. Connect the black wire to the other end of the resistor. You now have an operating current loop and the temperature sensor is powered up and operating. There is current flowing around this loop, somewhere between 4 and 20 mA. But, you don't know what the current is yet.

 

Second step: Get some white wire and some blue wire. Connect one end of the white wire to the resistor lead that already has a yellow wire, and connect the other end of the white wire to your USB-6009, on the + or high terminal for a differential analog input channel. Connect one end of the blue wire to the resistor lead that already has a black wire, and connect the other end of the blue wire to your USB-6009, on the - or low terminal for that same differential analog input channel. Now you have a complete electrical system that will be able to measure the current.

 

Third step: do some data acquisition with LabVIEW and the USB-6009. Look at examples in the Example Finder and read what everybody has already described in this thread about acquiring data. Forget all the things about RTDs and the ConvertRTD vi. You want to measure voltage, on the differential analog input channel you picked in the Second Step. Work on all these things until you are getting a voltage. If something is still confusing, go connect your USB-6009 to a flashlight battery instead and experiment around until you are reading about 1.5 volts. Whatever you do, keep at it until you can measure voltages on the electrical system we set up, so you are measuring somewhere between 1 and 5 volts on the white and blue wires. Now study the documentation and try putting the temperature device into places that have different temperatures, and see the voltage changing, and either by experimenting or by reading the documention or both, figure out the linear, straight-line relationship between the voltage you measure and the temperature. Remember Ohm's law, so you understand that 20 mA current in your loop will give you 5 V voltage on your analog channel, and 4 mA will give you 1 volt. When you get all this right, you will be getting temperature measurements that agree with the documentation and the experiments.

 

Now you are getting temperatures in LabVIEW.

 

Fourth step: you still are not finished. The batteries will run down, and all our colored wires probably do not fit neatly into whatever system you are working on. You should be using a DC power supply, or maybe DC power you already have in the system. Maybe my choice of 24 volts is not convenient in your steup. So, you must replace the temporary but working setup we created above with whatever permanent power and wiring the system has or wants or is compatible with. You will have to watch out for whether your USB-6009 or your computer or something else has a ground connection that interferes with what we are dong. Maybe you do not have to use a differential channel, depending on whether you can have a common channel connected to your system, and how the other measurements you maybe making are referenced to ground, and whether your DC power supply has either side tied to ground, and if things are floating do the voltages get too far from whatever your USB-6009 considers ground for it to handle. All of this stuff can be a chore. You have to understand other parts of your system. You are trying to use a 4-20 mA current loop measurement on your system - either you or other people in your shop or a vendor that sold you the system, or somebody someplace, should be able to help you with these issues (they are not temperature measurement issues, they are current loop issues).

 

The only way I can make this any clearer is to use my own USB-6009 and buy one of those temperature sensor / transmitters, wire them all together, and try to push them through the screen of my computer monitor. And since I am now helping you on a Saturday, I am at home, and do not want to bust a hole through my own monitor. So, good luck with it all!

Message 32 of 35
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Thank you so much Cebailey. Now I am also at home and I can not work here, so on Monday I will start working on it following your steps, and I will tell you how it is going.

Have a nice weekend.

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Message 33 of 35
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Before you start messing around with hardware, it would be in your best interest to do a little more learning. If you don't know what you're doing you could end up hurting yourself. You should start here: Measurement Fundamentals Main Page. If you do not understand the concepts being discussed, then you should find someone who works with you who can connect up the hardware. This forum can provide suggestions, but we cannot be held responsible for any damage that you cause to your hardware, and I don't even want to go down the road of causing damage to yourself.
Message 34 of 35
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Ok, I have been all the day with that. The hardware was already built. As you guys said, the sensors measure the current and sent it to the device through resistors so the device receives voltage. Thus I have used the VI we were programming acquiring voltage as input (we were not working for nothing) and now it works perfectly. Instead of RTD Converter I have used mathematics to convert the voltage into temperature, as I knew that 4mA (0,4V) gives 8ºC and 20 mA (2V) gives 40ºC. So the slope was x=20y. Now the temperature is measured perfectly and I can start working on the applications we need it, that are compare the temperature with a constrant value to send an output, and so on.

 

I send you the VI in case someone is interested or it can be helpful to somebody else.

 

I will write you again if I would need it. But now I would like to thank all of you for the help and the interest. I really appreciate what you have done.

 

Best, Sergymax

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