User manual

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2.4 Install the National Instrument PCI M- or X-Series board
NOTE: The M- and X-Series PCI, PCIe (PCIexpress) and USB 2.0 boards have a 0.5 sec keyboard
response delay (compared to 5.0 sec for the Digidata 132x boards).
2.4.1 M- and X-Series Data Acquisition Boards
Fairly recently, National Instruments has introduced the X-Series of boards along side the M-Series
boards. The X-series boards are slightly higher performance than the M-Series boards. I thought the PCI
and PCIe M-Series boards were/are great. The X-Series PCIe boards may be even slightly better. Note
that the PCIe bus is twice as fast as the PCI bus, so if your computer has a PCIe slot (and most do), it is
better to buy a PCIe board. More importantly, some computers are now down to only 1 PCI slot, and may
soon go down to none, so you will have to buy a PCIe board. WinLTP also supports USB 2.0 M- and X-
Series boards. Athough the USB boards with BNC connectors are more expensive than the PCI/PCIe
boards and BNC connector boxes, the portablility and ability to use with laptops may favor their purchase.
Also, the USB boards with screw teminals are close to comparable cost of the PCI/PCIe boards and BNC
connector boxes.
PCI boards to consider include these M-Series boards:
AD board Price* #AnalogInChs AnalogInSpeed #AnalogOutChs #HighSpeedDigOutChs
PCI-6221 $574 16** 250 kSamples/sec 2 8
PCI-6229 $797 32** 250 kSamples/sec 4 32
PCI-6251 $1038 16** 1 MSamples/sec 2 8
PCI-6259 $1390 32** 1 MSamples/sec 4 32
PCIe boards to consider include these X-Series boards.
AD board Price* #AnalogInChs AnalogInSpeed #AnalogOutChs #HighSpeedDigOutChs
PCIe-6321 $562 16 250 kSamples/sec 2 8
PCIe-6323 $782 32 250 kSamples/sec 4 32
PCIe-6351 $1017 16 1 MSamples/sec 2 8
PCIe-6353 $1362 32 1 MSamples/sec 4 32
If you wish to buy a USB 2.0 board and want to have BNC connectivity you can purchase the relatively
pricey USB-6341-BNC or USB-6343-BNC M-Series boards, or for screw terminal connectivity the more
reasonably priced USB-6341 or USB-6343:
AD board Price* #AnalogInChs AnalogInSpeed #AnalogOutChs #HighSpeedDigOutChs
USB-6341 $1080 16** 500 kSamples/sec 2 8
USB-6343 $1458 32** 500 kSamples/sec 4 32
USB-6341 BNC $1625 8*** 500 kSamples/sec 2 8
USB-6343 BNC $2022 16*** 500 kSamples/sec 4 32
* Prices are for July, 2014, are in US dollars, and include a 10% academic discount in units of 1. There is
also a 25% academic discount if buying in units of 5.
** The #AnalogInChs are for Non-Referenced Single Ended (NRSE) or Referenced Single-Ended (RSE)
recording modes. For Differential recording mode divide this analog input channel number by two.
*** Differential recording channels.