Functional Details
ADC Clock
The ADCs on a board share the same clock and are synchronized to start conversions at the same time for synchronous data. The clock and synchronized signals may also be shared across the Raspberry Pi GPIO header to synchronize multiple MCC 172s. The clock is programmable for various sampling rates between 51.2 kS/s and 200 S/s.
Trigger
The trigger input (terminal TRIG) is used to hold off the beginning of an analog input scan until the desired condition is met at the trigger input. The trigger input signal may be a 3.3V or 5V TTL or CMOS logic signal. The input condition may be a rising edge, falling edge, high level, or low level. The trigger may also be shared across the Raspberry Pi GPIO header to synchronize multiple MCC 172s.
Due to the nature of the filtering in the A/D converters, there is an input delay of 39 samples, so the data coming from the converters at any time is delayed by 39 samples from the current time. This is most noticeable when using a trigger - there will be approximately 39 samples prior to the trigger event in the captured data.
Alias Rejection
At low sampling rates, certain high-frequency signals (at multiples of 128 * the sampling rate) can fall below the cutoff frequency of the fixed analog anti-aliasing filter and create aliasing in the data. Using transducers with a bandwidth lower than 100 kHz should not affect measurement results. Sampling at 10.24 kHz or higher will also ensure that the anti-aliasing filter suppresses all signals that could alias into the data.
Firmware Updates
Use the firmware update tool to update the firmware on your MCC 172 board(s). The “0” in the example below is the board address. Repeat the command for each MCC 172 address in your board stack. This example demonstrates how to update the firmware on the MCC 172 that is installed at address 0: mcc172_firmware_update 0 ~/daqhats/tools/MCC_172.fw