Data Acquisition Starter Kit DI-1120

DATAQ Instruments announces a contemporary replacement for model DI-155 starter kit, model DI-1120 USB Data Acquisition (DAQ) Starter Kit ($178). The DI-155 has earned its place in DATAQ Instruments’ starter kit archives, having sold thousands of instruments since its release in 2012. Model DI-1120 picks up where its predecessor leaves off, with an impressive feature list and a price point that maintains DATAQ Instruments leadership in price/performance data acquisition solutions. Here’s a comparison:

Both the DI-155 and its successor offer armored, differential analog and discrete inputs to protect against signal connection mishaps. That’s where the similarities end. Let’s look at the areas where the DI-1120 excels versus the product it replaces:

Data Acquisition Resolution and Measurement Range

The DI-1120 provides twice the measurement resolution of the DI-155, and an expanded measurement range. Where the DI-155 supported a measurement range of ±2.5 to 50 V, the DI-1120 supports ±2 to 100 V. And measurement resolution is finer with the DI-1120 supporting 24 µV and 12 mV on its ±2 and ±100 V ranges respectively.

Data Acquisition Sample Rate

The DI-1120’s sample rate ranges from less than one sample per second when used with WinDaq software to one sample every 6.25 µS. That’s sixteen times faster than the DI-155.

ChannelStretch™ Support

Now it gets exciting. Both the DI-155 and -1120 provide four analog channels, and one rate and count input. If you’re using a DI-155 and you need that fifth analog input, or an extra pulse channel, you’re out of luck. Not with the DI-1120. ChannelStretch™ allows you to connect multiple instruments to a PC and acquire data from them synchronously as through they originate from a single instrument. ChannelStretch™ supports up to sixteen connected instruments, and is fully supported by WinDaq software and the included .Net SDK.

Over-sampling with Anti-alias Filters

The DI-1120 offers a selection of oversampling modes per enabled analog channel: Last point; Maximum; Minimum, and Filter. Last point is like any other data acquisition system. While over-sampled data contains multiple acquired values per sample interval, only the last acquired value is reported. The maximum and minimum modes evaluate the over-sampled data to report only the maximum or minimum value and discard the rest. This approach is useful in peak and valley detect applications where waveform shape is less important than the capture of absolute signal amplitude excursions. The final oversampling mode is CIC filter, where over sampled values are passed through a cascaded intergator comb filter to remove higher frequency noise. Filter sharpness is also suitable for use an an anti-alias filter in many applications.

Digital I/O with Pulse Inputs

The DI-1120 provides 7 digital ports, each configurable as an input or a switch. When activated as inputs two ports allow dual functionality as discrete inputs, or can be programmed as a counter or rate input respectively. The rate input features a 50 kHz maximum measurement, allocated over twelve programmable measurement ranges (10 Hz to 50 kHz full scale.) The counter input provides 16-bit resolution and a terminal count value of 65,535. The discrete, counter, and rate inputs are members of the same internal scan list used by the analog input channels. This means that all enabled elements are acquired synchronously, which allows meaningful comparisons between analog and digital channels. For example, the rate input measuring engine speed allows rpm data to be acquired in lock-step with analog data. Configured as a switch a digital port can be used to control external loads up to 25 V @ 100 mA, and the switch can be controlled asynchronously during scanning.

Learn more

Click this link for the DI-1120 product page for more details related to this remarkable instrument that will shatter all your notions of USB data acquisition price and performance. Product availability is slated for late May, 2017, and we’re currently accepting pre-release orders.

DI-1120 product page, https://www.dataq.com/products/di-1120/