Programmable Delay Generators

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munglet 21 years ago

Hi,

I've done my research to the best of my abilities and nothing seems to be available (well there is, but they cost $4000 US) that meets my needs for a programmable delay generator.

Here is what I want:

CMOS level input / output

4 - 8 outputs
1 - 2 inputs Delay resolution from .1ms to 100 seconds. .1ms jitter acceptable Delay length from .1ms to 100 seconds Windows USB, Serial, or Parallel programmable

These are devices that I want, but they are waaayyy out of my price range.

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BTW, the LC880 costs $4,000.

I'm looking for an off the shelf item.

No I don't want to create my own using a PIC or some other microcontroller No I don't want to string together a bunch of one-shot 555s or similar circuits No I don't want to string together a bunch of Bmumford Time Machines

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I'm willing to spend ~$1000.00 to get an already constructed item that does this. Any suggestions?

Thanks.

-M

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J

John Larkin 21 years ago

We make one, but it's almost $4k too.

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Check out Quantum Composers...

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Nice little boxes, if you can figure out the menus.

John

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Mac 21 years ago

What kind of signal are you delaying? What I'm getting at is, would there be more than one transition "in the pipe"? If not, it seems like someone (not necessarily me) could almost make you a single unit for $1000 and have it be worth it.

If the input waveform might have multiple transitions during the delay, however, it is quite a bit more difficult. Or maybe not. But it is good to know, either way.

--Mac

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DaveM 21 years ago

Have you seen and dismissed the LabJack?

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Dave M MasonDG44 at comcast dot net (Just subsitute the appropriate characters in the address) Never take a laxative and a sleeping pill at the same time!!

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Joerg 21 years ago

Hello Dave,

Considering that he said 100usec of jitter would be ok, maybe this could even be done using a good soundcard for the two inputs and the parallel port as the outputs. I don't know if Windows could perform well enough here but I am pretty confident QNX could.

Regards, Joerg

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Robert Lacoste 21 years ago

"Joerg" a écrit dans le message de news: iMrse.3096$ snipped-for-privacy@newssvr13.news.prodigy.com...

Fully agreed Joerg. Or he could just use an old PC (even a 80286 based one, may be a 8086..), and load it with MSDOS (or Freedos) and a small custom time delay software synchronized on a timer, with I/Os on the parallel port (at least 4-5 inputs and 10 ouputs if I remember). 100µs will not be a problem.

Cheers, Robert

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munglet 21 years ago

Everyone, thanks for all the input.

One thing I did find after I posted that met my all needs is the PulseBlaster.

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. Its a PCI based pulse generator that sells for under $1K.

Not sure if I will get it or not, but it does meet all my requirements.

I have a friend who basically did implement the same thing using DOS on a 386 , but I'd personally like to stay in Windows because of its GUI capabilities and because that is what I'm comfortable with.

I'm currently using a USB controller from ActiveWire (

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) and it works relatively well, but you can't be guaranteed of any consistent timing because all the various interrupts that could be occurring in the Windows environment.

I'm going to review the LabJack and see if it would have the same problem or not.

Again, thanks for the input.

-M

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Programmable Delay Generators

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