Oscilloscopes & Digitizers
Oscilloscopes have been around since the 1930's, used by scientists and engineers to measure a rapidly changing voltage, and displays a waveform of voltage measurements. Oscilloscopes typically take very fast voltage samples of usually 2 or 4 signals simultaneously, at rates from around 100 Megasamples (100MS) or up to 10 Gigasamples (10GS) per second.
Digitizers refer to nearly the same behavior, simply slower and more channel cound changes in electrical signals over time. Use these products for time‐ and frequency‐domain applications as well as to build spectrum analyzers, transient recorders, and many-channel phenomena detection systems.
Nowadays USB digitizers can now be extremely low cost, using simply an Analog-to-Digital (A/D) chip to digitize a signal, and the power of the PC to collect data.
Traditional Benchtop Oscilloscope
The gold standard found in nearly every technical company around the world. Mainly for manual interactive use, but can be automated with a PC.
USB Oscilloscope
PXI Oscilloscopes put the main function of a traditional oscilloscope into a module for use in the PXI platform.
PXI Oscilloscope
Acquires and analyzes time- and frequency‐domain analog signals as part of a PXI system.
Feature Highlights:
Platform: PXI
Bus: PXI, PXI Express
PXI Digitizer
Usually a multichannel voltage recorder, can be 4 to 80 Analog Voltage Inputs, various levels of resolution between 12-bit and 18-bit. Sometimes input and output, sometimes Multifunction (Analog and Digital)
Application Note
The voltage of the electricity in your home (in the United States) oscillates from -120V to +120V in a sinusoidal pattern, at 60 Hertz (cycles per second). An Oscilloscope would measure that signal by taking multiple voltage samples during a single cycle (1/60th of a second). Yet it can't just take 2 or 4 or 8 measurements per cycle. To get a clear shape of the signal it should take a minimum of 10 measurements, but perhaps as many as 100 or 1000 samples of the signal to get a good idea of the shape. To take 10-1000 measurements for each cycle, repeating 60 times per second, you would need 600 to 60,000 samples per second (60kS/s).
Next, imagine measuring the sound as you strike a tuning fork, which would start very loud and then slowly fade away. Sound is a very fast waveform of a specific frequency, like 2000Hz for a high pitched tone. You could digitize the first 100ms of that signal, or collect data longer to watch the signal's volume (peak to peak amplitude) fade. To digitize 2000 Hz audio, you might want to use a 20,000 sample per second. Humans can hear sound from 200 to 20000Hz, which is why digital audio systems sample and record data at 44kHz.
PXI Oscilloscopes
USB Oscilloscopes
Platform modules integrate with modular hardware platforms that allow you to combine different types of modules in a custom system that leverages shared platform features. NI offers three hardware platforms—CompactDAQ, CompactRIO, and PXI—though all platforms may not be represented in this category.
PXI Oscilloscope Bundle
The PXI Oscilloscope Bundle includes a chassis with a PXI Oscilloscope with support for up 1.5 GHz of analog bandwidth.
PXI Oscilloscope
Acquires and analyzes time- and frequency‐domain analog signals as part of a PXI system.
Feature Highlights:
Platform: PXI
Bus: PXI, PXI Express
PXI IF Digitizer
Analyzes intermediate frequency (IF) data for use in communications applications and superheterodyne receiver architectures.
Feature Highlights:
Platform: PXI
Bus: PXI, PXI Express
PXI FlexRIO Digitizer
Combines A/D converter technologies with Xilinx FPGAs for applications that demand real-time signal processing and high-performance analog input.
Feature Highlights:
Platform: PXI
Bus: PXI Express
Digitizer Adapter Module for FlexRIO
Provides high‐speed analog I/O to digitize signals from your transducer with a PXI FPGA Module for FlexRIO or the Controller for FlexRIO.
Feature Highlights:
Bus: FlexRIO
C Series Digitizer Module
Acquires and analyzes time- and frequency‐domain analog signals as part of a CompactDAQ or CompactRIO system.
Feature Highlights:
Platform: CompactDAQ, CompactRIO
STAND-ALONE OR COMPUTER-BASED DEVICES
Stand-alone or computer-based devices either integrate with standard desktop and laptop computers or allow you to use them without the need for other modular hardware.
Oscilloscope Device
Acquires and analyzes time‐ and frequency-domain analog waveforms.
Feature Highlights:
Bus: PCI, PCI Express, USB
FlexRIO Digitizer Device
Combines A/D converter technologies with Xilinx FPGAs for PCI applications that demand real-time signal processing and high-performance analog input.
Feature Highlights:
Bus: PCI Express
Oscilloscope Probe
Provides connectivity for PXI Oscilloscope, Oscilloscope Devices, and the VirtualBench All-In-One Instrument.