Turn your PDAs to customized measurement tools

The new CompactFlash data acquisition (DAQ) device from National Instruments (NI) allows standard PDAs to be transformed into customized, portable measurement tools.

The CF-6004 device, which is slightly larger than a standard postage stamp, plugs into any PDA with a CompactFlash slot to create a handheld instrument with the processing and wireless communication capabilities of the latest PDA devices. This new product is a 14bit multifunction DAQ device that can provide up to 200KS/s single-channel sampling on four analog input channels in a handheld form factor. It also offers four lines of digital I/O for controlling and measuring LVTTL or LVCMOS signals. Additionally, engineers can use the NI LabVIEW graphical programming environment for Pocket PC to acquire, analyze and view the data on their PDAs.

"The small size of the CompactFlash DAQ device opens up many new portable DAQ and monitoring applications," said Tim Dehne, SVP of research and development. "The concept of virtual instrumentation—where customers define their own instruments through graphical programming and modular hardware components—is moving to smaller and smaller form factors, making DAQ even more convenient and portable."

Since engineers can define their own unique instruments in LabVIEW and then deploy them to their handheld devices, they can also later change and re-deploy these applications to "repurpose" their PDAs into new measurements.