Looking to synchronize NI 9215 with USB 6361

[Radman]

Hello all,

I am looking to synchronize a USB 6361 and a ENET-9163/9215 so I can collect data at different datarates from two different datacards.  For example, I am planning on collecting 200kS/s on the USB 6361 and perhaps 1kS/s on the ENET-9163/9215.  I looked at the example VI  "Multi-Device Synch-Analog Input-Ref Trig-Multi Rate-Trig Skew Correction" and it looks like it would work well for my application but I don't see how to make it work.  Do I need to run an external clock to talk to both devices?  Can this VI even be used with both of these devices at the same time?

Thanks for your help in advance.....

Jay C. Poret

US Army ARDEC

[Mockingbird]

Hi Jim,

After looking up your two cards, it is theoretically possible to synchronize the two items. In order to synchronize the two cards, you would need to first connect the two devices in order to share their clocks. To do this you would need to first make an internal connection (using DAQmx Connect Terminals.vi) that will connect the sample clock of the USB 6361 to one of the PFI terminals on the USB-6361. After that you would need to connect that PFI terminal to a PFI 1 terminal in the ENET-9163 and then configure the NI-9215 to use PFI1 as the sample clock. This should synchronize your two devices, unfortunately I don't believe there is a way to do this without physically connecting the two devices.

[Radman]

Gabriel,

Thanks for responding so quickly and I apologize for my tardy response.  So it looks like I need to physically connect the two cards from the PFI0 of one card to the PFI1 port of the other card.  The NI ENET 9163 has a funky 4-slot connector on the rear pannel...I believe I need the NI 9942 plug...is there anything special about that plug that I cannot get from digikey or someother electronics place?  Does the NI plug have wires coming out of the plug to connect (or solder) to a BNC connector? 

Thanks,

Jay

[Mockingbird]

After looking at the product specifications, it looks like there's nothing really special about it. The NI plug doesn't have any extra wires coming out of the plug, but it's mostly to protect the device so that if you break a connector you don't have to replace the machine. You might be able to get it from digikey or other electronics place, but we do not guarantee that they will fit correctly. Hopefully this helps answer your question.

[Radman]

Gabriel,

Ok...I finally wired up the two datacards (I think).  I am using the USB-6361 as the master and the NI-9215 as the slave.  I am using the BNC PFIO0 on the 6361 and the wired PFIO1 on the 9215.  All the example programs are giving me errors when I run the program.  I guess the big quesiotn is how do I configure the clock and specifiy who is who? What do I set the reference clock source and the reference trigfger source?  I also don't see options for setting the slave input to either PFIO0 or PFIO1 for receiving the clock signal.

Thanks for your help......

jay

[Mockingbird]

Hi Jay,

could you be a bit more specific with what errors you are getting and which example program you are trying to use? This will help when identifying what's going on with the connections. Are you able to get an external clock signal on the 9215?

[Radman]

Gabriel,

i am using the Multi-Device Synch-Analog Input-Ref Trig-Multi Rate-Trig Skew Correction example and I keep getting error -200452.  My guess is that I am not getting a clock signal from the 6361 to the 9215.  Right now I am using PFI15 on the 6361 as the source and PFI1 on the 9215 as the input.  Maybe I need to  make the 6361 send out a signal from PFI15?  If I go into NIMax I see no signal is being sent from PFI15 unless I go into the counter tab and tell it to send a signal.  How do I tell it to send out a timing signal? 

Thoughts?

Thanks,

jay

[Mockingbird]

Hi Jay,

It certainly seems to be the case with that. The other thing I would look into when using the standard examples are the hardware requirements for each example. Error -200452 occurs when a specified property is not available for the particular device you are using. 

I would take a look at this white paper that talks about synchronization in general.

White Paper: USB Synchronization