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The Challenge:

To develop a data acquisition cart, combining existing and new functionality, to calibrate and monitor environmental sensors and test system stability for industrial compressor testing.

The Solution:

Ball Systems developed and delivered customized data acquisition carts to measure industrial compressor performance in order to automate previous manual measurements.

Features:

• Industrial carts to house PC’s and National Instruments (NI) Hardware.
• User interface tailored to the end-user and providing:
  • Temperature system monitoring (64 K-type thermocouple jacks per cart).
  • Pressure system monitoring (omega pressure transducers).
  • Verification of ambient conditions (barometric pressure, temperature, relative humidity).
  • Control and monitor of fan, engine and motor speed through CAN connection and optical sensors.
  • Log data in two different modes: continuous log or data snapshot.
    • Continuous logging will log data to an Excel file at a user-specified rate.
    • Data snapshots formatted into Excel report using LabVIEW report generation toolkit.
  • Modify and save sensor labels before data acquisition.
  • Enter test report data (location, engine model, compressor model, etc.).
  • Calibrate sensors – the customer has the ability to calibrate sensors using NI measurements and automation explorer calibration feature.
• Customer control through LabVIEW software customized by Ball Systems’ certified LabVIEW architects and developers to create a platform that suits their specific needs.
  
  

Benefits:

The new data acquisition carts provide the following:

• Reduction in test time and errors by eliminating manual processes such as measuring relative humidity, ambient temperature and barometric pressure.
• Further improvements in test time through automatic reading of CAN data – previous customer methodology included using separate laptop and software in order to read CAN data.
• User interface to support:
  • Sensor calibration by the end-user without having to navigate through the measurements and automation explorer.
  • Use of tab controls and comments, increasing ease-of-use and organization over existing user interfaces.
• Ability to save, load and modify sensor labels as a feature to the customer which was not previously available, improved reporting accuracy and saved time by eliminating the need to manually enter label names in the final report.
• Software written to optimize user interface response to user input.
  
  

Hardware and Software:

Ball Systems maintains an expansive array of in-house equipment and immediately available hardware and software platforms; reducing development time to meet critical customer deadlines. Specific components leveraged in developing the solution above included:

• NI PXIE-1078 9-slot 3U PXI express chassis (1 per cart).
• NI PXIe-1078 rack mount kit (1 per cart).
• NI PXI-PCIe8362, MXI-express, 2 port PCIE, 3m cable (1 per cart).
• NI PXIe-4353 32-channel, 24-bit, thermocouple input module (2 per cart).
• Terminal Block – screw terminal TB-4353 (2 per cart).
• NI PXIe-4300 8 channel, 250kS/s, 300V ch-ch isolated analog input module (3 per cart).
• Terminal Block – screw terminal TB-4300, 10V (3 per cart).
• NI PXI-8513 1-port software-selectable NI-XNET CAN interface, PXI (1 per cart).
• Software was written using LabVIEW.
• Microsoft report generation toolkit for LabVIEW.
• NI measurements and automation calibration tool (used and accessed from LabVIEW).