Labview + SPI Sensors

[Gdeaver]

Team 1640 built a 4 wheel independent steering pivot drive for 2010. We used 4 window motors for steering. To sense wheel position, we used Cherry AN8 series non-contact absolute rotary position sensors. They output a analog voltage from .5 volts to 4.5 volts. They have performed very well. However we are looking at other sensor options and have found some other encoders that put out a synchronous serial stream of 16 bits. My question is has any other team used the Labview SPI interface with success? We would have to use 36" cables to 2 of the sensors. Is this a problem? Do we need to use shielded cable? Before we buy some to test it would be nice to know if this is a viable solution. Like I said the analog sensors work fine but we could get better resolution and linearity with the serial sensors. Any input would be appreciated.

[Ether]

Originally Posted by Gdeaver

we are looking at other sensor options and have found some other encoders that put out a synchronous serial stream of 16 bits

Can you provide a link to those please ?

[Gdeaver]

One possibility is http://www.avagotech.com/docs/AV02-0188EN

[Vikesrock]

2175 had code working for the KOP magnetic encoders interfaced over SPI. We had other issues with using the sensor so it was ditched before competition, but the SPI code ran fine as far as I recall.

The code was based on the (no longer available) code form this thread:
http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/sh...&highlight=spi

I don't have Labview on my machine anymore so I can't look into the code I have here and see what might be relevant to post and what would just be confusing. If you're interested in the code I'll try to get one of the team's programme's to sort through and see if they can get something clean to post here.