National Instruments PXI System NI PXI-1042Q with PXI-8108, 7833R, 4461, 8250

National Instruments PXI System

This system is a full NI PXI test and measurement platform that includes a silent 8-slot PXI chassis, an integrated controller, and three high-performance I/O/expansion modules for mixed-signal, FPGA-based, and storage applications. ​

NI PXI-1042Q Chassis

The NI PXI‑1042Q is an 8-slot PXI chassis that stores the controller and plug-in modules. It also provides power, cooling, and a timing/synchronization backplane. It has one system controller slot and seven peripheral slots.

It is designed to be quiet (approximately 43 dBA) and has AUTO/HIGH fan modes and enough cooling (about 25 W) per slot for demanding measurement modules. The backplane has a 10 MHz reference clock, a PXI trigger bus, a star trigger, and a local bus. This lets modules stay in sync with each other for complicated automated test systems. ​

PXI-8108 Embedded controller

The NI PXI-8108 is a single-slot embedded PXI controller that takes the place of an external PC. It has an Intel Core 2 Duo T9400 2.53 GHz dual-core processor with 6 MB L2 cache and dual-channel 800 MHz DDR2 RAM (usually 1 GB standard, although it can be expanded). It has an 80 GB (around) SATA hard disk, built-in GPIB, Ethernet, USB, video, and RS-232 connections, so the system can boot up, run Windows or LabVIEW Real-Time, and talk to outside instruments while leaving the other slots open for measurement modules. ​

PXI-7833R reconfigurable I/O module

The NI PXI‑7833R is a R‑Series multifunction reconfigurable I/O board that has a Xilinx FPGA on board for bespoke timing and processing. It can handle analog, digital, and counter I/O.

Typical requirements for this class are several 16-bit analog inputs and outputs, correlated digital I/O lines, and 32-bit counters. All of these are tightly controlled by user-defined FPGA logic created in LabVIEW FPGA to implement custom protocols, hardware-timed control loops, or in-line signal processing. ​

PXI-4461 dynamic signal acquisition module

The NI PXI-4461 is a 24-bit dynamic signal acquisition (DSA) and generation device made for sound and vibration operations. It has two analog inputs and two analog outputs that can be sampled at the same time, with a maximum sample rate of 204.8 kS/s.

It has a dynamic range of up to about 118 dB, a high alias-free bandwidth of up to about 92 kHz, AC/DC coupling per channel, and customizable input/output ranges. This makes it great for audio analysis, modal testing, and precise dynamic measurements. ​

PXI-8250 module for expansion and storage

The NI PXI‑8250 is a PXI module that is used for storage and extension in PXI systems. It usually has a removable hard drive or other expansion infrastructure that lets high-speed PXI modules log massive data sets.

In a system like this, it works with the embedded controller to add more storage space and support test programs that need to run for a long time or have a lot of data to process. ​

PXI-1042Q System Use

The PXI-1042Q chassis and PXI-8108 controller provide computing and synchronization, the PXI-7833R handles user-programmable FPGA-based I/O and control, the PXI-4461 manages high-resolution sound/vibration measurements, and the PXI-8250 adds strong data storage or expansion.

This setup is great for automated testing, hardware-in-the-loop simulation, acoustics, and complicated measuring activities in a lab or production setting.