Problem simulating DC signal in NI MAX (cDAQ-9178 + NI-9205)

[damasin]

Hello,

I'm working with LabWindows/CVI and NI MAX to simulate voltage acquisition before testing with real hardware.
I created a program to acquire analog voltages using a simulated cDAQ-9178 chassis with an NI-9205 module.

I'm encountering two issues:

1. Signal Type:
   The simulated signal is always a sinusoidal waveform between ±10 V. Even if I try to modify the signal behavior in the Test Panel (changing voltage limits, etc.), it remains a sine wave.
   I would need to simulate a constant (DC) signal instead of a sinusoidal one.
   Is there any way to simulate a DC voltage with a simulated device in NI MAX?

2. Signal Scaling:
   When I set a smaller voltage range in my program (for example ±2 V), instead of measuring only the part of the ±10 V sine wave that falls within ±2 V, the simulated system automatically scales the whole sine wave to fit within the ±2 V range.
   This does not match real behavior, where I would expect the signal to be clipped or saturated.
   Is this scaling behavior normal in simulation mode? Is there a way to make the simulation more realistic (showing saturation instead of scaling)?

[rolfk]

Simulated devices in DAQmx have a fixed functionality that can’t be changed. They are not meant as a specific stimuly for your process but as a way to provide a device where most of the DAQmx functions can work with without generating all kinds of errors.

The idea to make this configurable or even programmatically controllable has been posed before but the effort would be quite enormous and the benefits limited.