data acquisition for a small sized test lab

October 1, 2013 10:25 PM

in my previous job i worked with an emerson data acquisition and control system that was completely integrated and customisable. all facility control and data gathering was from the same software, with a customised faceplate gui. i am now at a new job that is using stand alone data takers with 30m long cables to get data. it is unstable and prone to interference and limited amount of data channels, plus no discrete outputs. is there an ideal mid strength solution, that wouldn't cost the same as the emerson system, but would be more robust and effective than a datataker?
posted by edtut to Science & Nature (1 answer total)

Best answer: I presume you're talking about DeltaV, which is a fine control system but really much more than anybody not running a whole factory needs.

In my experience there are two good choices out there if you want something between DeltaV and a fairly dumb data acquisition box.

If you want something that looks and feels like DeltaV lite I recommend Phoenix Contacts Think & Do. It's PC based and if your comfortable with DeltaV's tagging and SFC's you should come up to speed quite quickly on it. The one thing I don't care for is the HMI editing portion, I'd ignore it and use Indusoft's HMI software. It also integrates very nicely with Host Automation's IO modules.

The other choice is National Instruments stuff. Their hardware is quite versatile and the programming language, LabVIEW, is quite well known. LabVIEW is a kinda weird graphical language but is pretty easy to get up to speed on.

I've used all these things, DeltaV, Think & Do, LabVIEW, PLC's and data acquisition boxes, memail me if you have questions.
posted by Confess, Fletch at 6:26 AM on October 2, 2013