Interim Data Acquisition System for the Environmental Test Laboratory

An interim data acquisition (IDAC) system was developed and installed in the Environmental Test Laboratory of the Applied Physics Laboratory. This system can scan 200 analog voltages and 400 thermocouples under control of a programmable calculator. The calculator converts the data to engineering units, checks calibration channels for out-of-tolerance and thermocouples for open circuit. Source and channel identification is formatted with the data and printed at the rate of approximately 1 channel/s. Also included in this printout are power-supply wattages calculated from measured voltages and currents, and temperature averages for preselected groups of thermocouples. Out-of-tolerance calibration channels and open thermocouples are flagged when they are printed out. A digital clock provides timed intervals for automatically initiating the data acquisition cycle. Time and test identification data are pointed at the start of each printout to identify test and run numbers.