Connecting Multiple PXI-boards for faster data aquisition speed Is it feasible?

Technical NI LabVIEW
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I have a PXI board sampleing at 10 Ms/s. In principle I am wondering if it is feasible to make an array of a couple of the same boards, (even if in different chassis) and create some sort of offset between sampling triggers, which if all the boards are sampling at the same rate, (say the maximum 10 Ms/s), then I am getting a sampling rate of (number of boards * 10 Ms/s).

I know that there has to be some sort of device at the end that can pick up all the samples and so, for example, if I connected these boards/chassis together so that I had 10 cards all together, I could theoretically have 100 Ms/s, but I would need something at the end that could grab all the data. Does anyone know anything about this or have any ideas what so-ever?

I am thinking at worst, I could have some sort of device that writes this information to a buffer, (a really large one), and then whatever it is at the end could then re-combine everything. I however wonder if there is a better solution, have looked around but think that I just don’t have the right keywords or knowledge. So I thought that perhaps someone could give me a heads up or a keyword or something. Or, if there even is a methodology or something that has been developed that does what I am thinking.

I am trying to create this in part because I need a lot of channels, (like 32), at 100 Ms/s. I am trying to make the hardware scalable since say some day I need to go to 200 Ms/s, instead of 100 Ms/s. Instead of buying a whole new Chassis/boards, perhaps I can just use the same ones that I have and create a raid like system.

Any thoughts are helpful,

thank you,

Brian

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Brian -

This forum is intended primarily for a k-12 robotics competition called FIRST. The highschool competition uses cRIO’s as the heart of their control system, which is probably how you found us.

There are many LabVIEW experts that browse this forum, so perhaps they can help you. In the mean time, please look around and consider joining our community.

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I’ll echo Eric’s comments: the question isn’t really relevant to the forum, but I’ll answer it anyway. My thoughts

  1. there may be a way to do this, but it’s going to be hard. I think for the effort, just buy a board that has the proper sample rate to begin with. NI makes boards that will do at least 2 Gigasamples/s. Now they aren’t cheap, but you get what you pay for.

  2. If you really want to do it, just call up National Instruments and ask them if it’s possible. In my experience the local NI sales reps are incredibly helpful. Just call up the main sales number on the website and ask them. Or ask them to give you the number of a local sales rep in your area. If you tell them that you’re thinking about buying a whole bunch of boards from them, they’ll be more than willing to help you find the right product for your need.

Daniel