LV-1000HS-10K User Guide

The DI-1000HS-10K unit is pre-calibrated to your load cell before shipping. Do not try to recalibrate it without first contacting Loadstar Sensors.

Overview

LV-1000HS-10K software together with our DI-1000UHS-10K data acquisition system can be used to acquire data from our load cells or other sensors at rates of up to 10 kHz.

Installation

Insert the CD-Rom into drive. The installation should start automatically. If not, browse to the CD-Rom folder and run Setup.exe to run the installation. Ater the main program is installed, the driver installation program (InstaCalSetup.Exe) will be run. This program is provided by Measurement Instruments Computing to work with the BTH-1208LS DAQ Board.

If this program is not found, it may not have been installed due to a known glitch in Windows. If this is the case, please locate the instacal setup program prgram by navigating to c:\program files\loadstar sensors\lv-1000hs-10k\drivers\instcalsetup.exe and simply double-click on the program to run.

After the driver installation is completed, you will be asked to reboot the computer. You must reboot in order for the devices to be recognized. After rebooting,

1. Connect the DI-1000HS-10K to the computer's USB port.
2. Windows will prompt you for the drivers. Choose "Install drivers automatically".
3. THEN run the InstaCal configuration utility (This can be done by navigating to the Programs...Measurement Computing...InstalCal) This utility will detect the DAQ automatically and show the following dialog.

   If this program is not found, please refer to the beginning of this document on manually installing it.

Click OK to continue. The DI-1000HS-10K device will now be added to the Windows registry so Windows can recognize the device from now on. The InstaCal configuration utility needs to be run only once.

Startup and Sensor Selection

Click on the LV-1000HS-10K icon on your desktop () to start the program. The software will search for the DAQ and indicate that the board has been found. Click Continue to proceed to the main screen of LV-1000HS-10K.

If the board is not detected the software will still continue and show the main screen, where you can add/remove sensors, view previously saved files (using the menu option Graph...Overlay Graphs....)

Operation

The main window consists of the folowing areas:

• The sensor selection and data capture settings area.
• Log settings area
• Graph area
• Zero and Start buttons

Sensor Setup and Selection

You can connect up to 4 sensors to a single IMF-10KHz-XXX DAQ, though you can read only one a time. A sensor can be of any type - load cell, displacement, torque, pressure etc. The sensor is pre-calibrated at our facilities or you can calibrate then sensor yourself using the software's calibration window.

Click on Select/Configure... in the main window to show the sensor configuration window.

In this window you can add,delete and edit sensors. The area on the left shows all the configured sensors. Click on Add..., Edit... or Delete... buttons to perform the appropriate actions. To save your changes click the Save.

To add or edit a sensor, you need to enter the following data:

• ID
  The sensor's unique identification. You can choose your own name for the sensor (for example, Impact Tester etc, or use the serial number of the DAQ)
• Type
  Select whether this is a force sensor, torque sensor etc. Depending on what is selected, the unit selection options in the next field will change.
• DAQ Channel
  Select where this is sensor is connected to channel 0, 1, 2 or 3.
• Calibration
  Enter the calibration value (for example, lbf/volt, N/volt etc). Refer to the calibration certificate provided by Loadstar Sensors. If you would like to calibrate the sensor yourself, click on the Calibrate... to show the calibrate window.

After entering all the required data, click on Save to save your changes. The click Close to return to the main window.

You must select ('check') at least one sensor to be the active sensor. This is the sensor (channel) that will be read by the software.

Calibrating a Sensor

The calibration screen shown below allows you to calibrate your sensor using known applied loads, torques or displacements.

The procedure to calibrate a sensor is as follows:

• Step 1
  Remove any applied load (or torque or displacement) from the sensor, enter 0 in the appropriate area, and click on the Read button. Volts at zero load will be displayed. Note: The load does not actually have to be zero. You can apply a dead load (for example, mounting fixtures etc) and choose to zero out this load.
• Step 2
  Now apply a know load, preferably full load, enter the load value and click on the Read button. Volts at this load will be displayed.
• Step 3
  Click Calibrate to compute the slope of the calibration curve, for example kgf/volts.
• Step 4
  Click OK to accept the calibration. This will return you to the Select/Configure Sensor window. Then click on Save to save this calibration.

Select Close to return to the main window. Make sure you have selected this sensor (by checking the first column on the sensor list) to be read.

After a sensor is selected, its data will be displayed in the main window. Next revise and or confirm the following DAQ settings.

• Capture Time (seconds)
  Depending on your expected test duration, select a data capture duration. This value is entered in seconds.
• Sampling rate (Hz)
  Choose the data sampling frequency. The following options are available: 1000 Hz, 2000 Hz, 5000 Hz and 10000 Hz.
• Output Units (Convert to units...)
  If the sensor is calibrated in lbf and you want our output (logs, graphs etc) to be Newtons, you can make your selection here.
• Decimals to display
  The log file outputs and the peak and low values displayed will use this setting to determine how many decimals places to format the numbers.

The total number of points captured will be: Capture Frequency (samples/sec) × Capture Time (sec)

The more number of points that are captured, more the memory that will be needed to plot, log the data etc. If you find the software performance slowing down, try to reduce the capture time and/or capture frequency to the minimum required.

Logging Data

Check the Log readings to file checkbox to enable logging of sensor data to an Excel compatible CSV file. By default the files will be saved to My Documents folder. Click on Select Folder to choose a different folder to save the files. Also enter a file name for the log file. Check Append timestamps to append the date and time of the test to the file name itself.

The timestamp will consist of year, month, date, hour, minute and seconds. For example, if you enter "Test" as the file name, the files will be saved as Test-20150428133627, Test-20150428141009 etc. If you do not change the filename between tests, but do not check Append timestamps, timestamps will be appended anyway since it is not possible to have two files with the same name in the same folder.

Graph

The acquired data will be plotted in the graph area after the data acquisition is complete. Right-click on the graph to show the Graph Options window.

The following options are available:

• Graph Title
  The graph title will be displayed on top of the graph.
• Y-Axis Options, Auto or Fixed
  Select Auto to autoscale the Y-Axis values.
  Select Manual to specify upper and lower bounds for the Y-Axis and enter the appropriate values.
• Y-Axis Title
  Enter a title for the Y-Axis.

Data Capture

If you have an initial load (or torque or displacement) on the sensor, click Zero to remove this initial value from force calculations. The voltage at this initial value will be displayed. This is just for reference.

Then click Start to run your test and read the sensor.

At this point, you will lose control for the duration of the capture time while the software reads the data from the sensor, converts the voltages to force/torque values, calculates Peak and Low values, and log and plot the readings. The LED indicator on the DAQ will blink every second for the duration of the capture time.

After the data capture is completed, the data will be plotted and also saved as a file (if the Log File option has been selected). By right clicking on the graph, the graph can be copied to the clipboard or printed. Peak and Low values are also shown (the maximum +ve and -ve values).

Press F9 and use mouse cursor to zoom in on specific areas of the graph. Right-click to zoom out. Press F9 again to exit the zoom feature.