Is the DAQ USB-6218 suitable in my case ?

[Quertsy]

Hi everyone ! I am a student and very new to this and am still getting familiar with the basics. I am working on a project with an electronic card.

I have to send some commands on the serial link of the card to activate and deactivate some I/O in order to measure different voltages on the card and to validate some tests. I want to automate these tests.

Currently, I have 28 analog voltages to measure that's why I think the DAQ USB-6218 with its 32 analog inputs would be suitable. Also, the input range of 10 V suits me perfectly due to the fact that most of my voltages are between 0 and 10 V.
For voltages higher than 10 V, I thought of using voltage dividing bridges.

Does this choice seem relevant to you?

Also, I would like to avoid using LabView, so I would like to know how easy it was to program such a device using Python.

I saw that it was possible to use a python package called PyVISA that enables you to control all kinds of measurement devices independently of the interface (e.g. GPIB, RS232, USB, Ethernet).

My idea would be to make a python interface in the near future.

Any help would be greatly appreciated!! Thank you. 

[oscarfonseca · Accepted solution]

Hey Quertsy,

The DAQ USB-6218 seems like a feasible option based on your description. Please take into account that these are 32 single ended analog input channels, which means they use a common AI GND (for RSE) or AI SENSE (for NRSE). More information here: Grounding Considerations - Intermediate Analog Concepts and its pinout here: USB-6218 Screw Terminal Pinout 

Additionally, regarding the programming of the device, you will need the DAQmx driver to use this device. After installing the driver, you can use the nidaqmx Python wrapper to call into its functions. The driver ships with C libraries, so you can use more than LabVIEW with it: Control NI DAQ Device with Python and NI DAQmx 

Regards,

[Quertsy]

Hey Oscar,

Thank you a lot for these clarifications, it definitely help me out.

Regards,

Quertsy