How to make your own BNC connector board for 37 pin PCI 6010?

[zebraa]

It's first time I am doing data acquisition and the BNC 2110 present cannot be connected to PCI 6010. So how to make a board for it?

[bstreiff]

The DAQmx Help lists the pinouts for your device. It is by default installed at Start->Programs->National Instruments->NI-DAQ->NI-DAQmx Help. The topic you're looking for is NI-DAQmx Help->NI-DAQmx Device Terminals->DAQ Devices->NI PCI-6010. Additionally you can get to it by right-clicking your device in MAX and selecting 'Device Pinouts'

[bstreiff]

(Edit: Whoops, double-posted.)

[zebraa]

Thanks for the links..

How many connectors should I have on the board? total 36 (shud leave NC i guess)? Why are there only few bnc connectors on commercially available terminal blocks like bnc 2110? isn't there another way to make homemade thing less bulky? plz excuse me for such questions. I have actually no idea..sry

[bstreiff · Accepted solution]

I'm not sure what you mean by 'few'; the BNC-2120 exposes all of the AI and AO channels on Connector 0 of a standard E, M, or X Series device.

• Eight of the BNC connectors are for eight differential AI channels. For example, for the BNC connector labelled 'AI 0', the center connects to the 'AI 0' pin and the outer connects to the 'AI 8' pin. (The BNC-2120 would probably not be a good choice for someone who wanted to use channels in single-ended mode.)
• Another two are for analog output; the centers are 'AO 0' and 'AO 1', and the outers are tied to 'AO GND'.
• There's another BNC connector for PFI 0; all of the other PFIs (except for 10, 11, and 15) are broken out as screw terminals.
• The other BNC connectors don't connect to anything directly (the function generator is powered by the +5V line but otherwise operates independently, and the 'user defined signals' are connected to the adjacent screw terminals).

It does seem like it wouldn't be difficult to have a cable that went from the 37-pin connector on a PCI-6010 to the 68-pin connector on the BNC-2120. I'm a little curious as to why we don't make one. Possible reasons off the top of my head that might explain why not:

• the PFI/description maps would be wrong (for instance, on an E/M/X Series 'CTR 0 SRC' is PFI 8; on the 6010 it is PFI 0.)
• no digital lines (on E/M/X series P0.0 through P0.7 are independent; on the 6010 P0.0 through P0.5 and P1.0 through P1.3 are shared with PFI lines)
• Confusion about being able to connect it to any other devices we sell with a 37-pin DSUB connector but that do not use a compatible pinout (such as the PCI-6239, PCI-6510 or the NI 9237). Then again, a PCI-6703 also uses a 68-pin connector but has a completely incompatible pinout as well.

But it seems like those would be easy enough to deal with, since being able to connect to the BNC-2010 is useful. Perhaps it's an idea for the Data Acquisition Idea Exchange?

Anyway, if you wanted to have BNC breakouts for everything, on your homebrew board you would have:

• Either 8 or 16 BNC connectors for AI, depending if you wanted differential or single-ended. For differential, the centers are AI 0 through AI 7, and the outers are AI 8 through AI 15. For single-ended, the centers are AI 0 through AI 15 and the outers should all connect to AI GND.
• One for AI SENSE (I believe you only need this if you're using Nonreferenced Single-Ended (NRSE) channels. See also: Field Wiring and Noise Considerations for Analog Signals.)
• Two for AO (centers are AO 0 and AO 1, outers both connect to AO GND).
• Ten for the PFI/digital lines. Outers will connect to D GND.

So a maximum of 29. You may want fewer, depending on your application.