PXI, GPIB hybrid system and triggering

[smag]

I have two questions regarding to the hybrid system. Right now, our measurement system is based on GPIB bus and all the instruments are stand-alone GPIB equipments. The insturments are controlled by a desktop through a USB-GPIB card. In order to achieve the synchronization of the instruments, we use a bus trigger command over the GPIB bus. We plan to use PXI system in order to improve scanning throughput. My questions are,

1, Will it work if we have some of the GPIB instruments controlled by the desktop through the USB-GPIB card and at the same time have the PXI system controlled by the same desktop?

2, If the answer to Q1 is yes, how can we synchronize the PXI measurement system and GPIB instruments? I mean to trigger both subsystem to take measurements at the same time.

Thanks!

[Adam_U]

You actually have quite a few options for triggering between PXI and traditional instruments. Best case, your GPIB instrument can output some hardware signals like a sample clock, reference clock or start trigger that you can then wire into your PXI system to take measurements. If you are only synchronizing a single PXI module to your GPIB instrument and want to save some cost, most modules can accept these external synchronization signals directly (usually via PFI lines). If you want scalability or want to synchronize multiple modules to these signals, you can also import the clocks into the chassis' timing and triggering lines with a Timing and Synchronization module. This option would allow you to synchronize up to 16 modules to your GPIB instrument (using an 18-slot chassis).