Shaker control system offers IEEE-1394 FireWire

IEEE-1394 FireWire has come to the Vibration Control market for increased performance yet a reduction in system price.

IEEE-1394 FireWire has come to the Vibration Control market for increased performance yet a reduction in system price.

VibRunner is the newest component of m+p international's growing range of shaker control systems for environmental test simulation and vibration analysis.

Providing VXI instrumentation and DSP functions for the PC-based system, VibRunner offers an economical alternative within the product range of 8+ channel applications for the aerospace, automotive and defence industry.

VibRunner is based on the Agilent VXI data acquisition and signal conditioning hardware modules combined with the industry standard IEEE-1394 FireWire interface to the Windows NT/2000 workstation.

The recently introduced IEEE-1394 FireWire has its roots in the video and audio industry.

The communication protocol of FireWire is dedicated to efficient and inexpensive high-speed data transfer between external devices (digital video cameras, DVD players, measurement instrumentation, FireWire disc, speaker, .) and the host PC.

The current hardware allows for up to 14Mb/s throughput rates.

Moreover FireWire supports daisy chaining of multiple devices allowing for fast data transfer from multiple devices (vibration data, temperature data, functionality data, .

) to one controlling host PC without compromising the overall data transfer performance.

The FireWire based VibRunner support 8+ input and 2 output channels.

Input channels can be selected for single- or multi-channel control, measurement, watchdog (limiting) and any combination of measurement types.

The first output signal drives the shaker in all modes of operation.

The second output signal can be used as a COLA in Sine Control mode, for reference recording or for a stroboscope.

The E1432 on-board Digital Signal Processor and high-speed FireWire PC connection enables a wide range of vibration test modes to be configured from simple random vibration for stress screening to swept sine and dwell, shock and mixed mode sine-on-random for advanced qualification and developmental test applications.

Digital input/outputs, both in the host PC or in the VXI mainframe, can also be added to enable automatic operation under climatic chamber control for combined environment test programs.

VibRunner VXI measurement hardware is located outside of the PC so analog performance is not compromised by the electrically noisy PC environment.

This improves isolation, reduces unwanted noise and increases dynamic range capability.

Until now it has been impossible to buy both an economical low-channel count system (the m+p international's VibPilot) and a high-channel count performance system (m+p international's VibRunner) for vibration test with the same software interface.

VibRunner now offers that capability.

Test specifications can be transferred from engineering to production without change or error, test data can be compared directly from one system to another, common reporting formats improve communication, data can easily be shared on any network and accessed from anywhere you require which all adds up to improved productivity, reduced cost of ownership and higher quality results.

Built on m+p international's 15 years of experience with UNIX-based vibration control systems, the PC-based VibcoNT control software was first introduced in 1997 and was the world's first Windows NT based product for environmental vibration test applications.

The pioneering use of the Windows NT operating system in this application has lived up to m+p international's initial promises as acknowledged by many of the leading environmental test laboratories around the world who have installed m+p international systems.

Reliable multi-tasking operation and safe test execution together with low software maintenance costs have been the benefits achieved with this stable software platform.

VibcoNT's high performance inheritance makes its combination with the high performance VibRunner and the Windows NT operating system an unbeatable partnership.

In 1980 Mahrenholz + Partner Ingenieursgesellschaft was founded in Hannover, Germany by the then director of the Institute of Technical Mechanics at Hannover University.

At the beginning business was focused on consulting and computational tasks for mechanical dynamics and applied mechanics, in the following years activities shifted more and more to measurement and process data applications.

In 1992 m+p international Mess- und Rechnertechnik GmbH and m+p international inc.

Verona, New Jersey, were started to market the VibControl vibration control and data acquisition systems world-wide.

The VibControl solutions have been developed since 1989 and are one of the company's key products today.

Their customer support commitment was further enhanced with their recently established UK base.

The merger of the two parent companies into the new m+p international Mess- und Rechnertechnik GmbH, Hannover, on January 2000 is an excellent basis on which to expand our growing international business.

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