Quick Start Using DASYLab with your Measurement Computing USB device Thank you for purchasing a USB data acquisition device from Measurement Computing Corporation (MCC). This Quick Start document contains the latest information on downloading, installing, and using DASYLab version 12.0.1 and the MCC-DRV driver with your USB device. DASYLab is an icon-based data acquisition, graphics, control, and analysis software package. You must first configure your MCC USB device with InstaCal the installation, calibration, and test utility for MCC hardware before you can use it with DASYLab. Instructions on installing and using InstaCal are included below. Please read this document completely before you install any software or hardware. Required software DASYLab 12.0.1 (purchased version or evaluation license) MCC InstaCal driver and utility software (version 6.23 or later) You can download the DASYLab evaluation, InstaCal, and any software updates and service packs from the Software/Drivers Downloads page at www.mccdaq.com/software.aspx. System requirements DASYLab 12.0.1 requires the following minimum hardware and operating system requirements. Hardware CPU - x86 compatible processor, 1 GHz or more RAM - At least 1 GB, 2 GB recommended Hard disk space - 250 MB free storage space, of which at least 200 MB on the system partition Graphics board - Color depth at least 16-bit (High Color), recommended 24- or 32-bit (True Color) Screen resolution - At least 1024 768 Operating Systems You must have administrator rights on your account using one of the following operating systems: Windows 7 32-bit Windows 7 64-bit (as 32-bit application) Windows Vista 32-bit, with Service Pack 2 Windows Vista 64-bit (as 32-bit application) Windows XP Pro with Service Pack 3 Document Revision 3 April, 2012
Download and install InstaCal Follow these steps to install the latest version of InstaCal. You must be logged in as an administrator to install InstaCal. If you have already installed InstaCal If you have already installed InstaCal from the Measurement Computing Data Acquisition Software CD that came with your device, run InstaCal from the Start»All Programs»Measurement Computing menu. Select Help»About InstaCal to see what version is installed. For version 6.23 or later, exit InstaCal and proceed to the section Install and connect your MCC USB device to its signal source. For versions earlier than 6.23, exit InstaCal and continue to follow the steps for downloading and installing InstaCal. 1. Click on the Download InstaCal link on the Software/Drivers Downloads page at www.mccdaq.com/software.aspx to download icalsetup.exe. 2. Run icalsetup.exe to extract the installation files and install the latest version of InstaCal. 3. Restart your computer when prompted. Install and connect your MCC USB device to its signal source Refer to your MCC device user's guide for instructions on installing and connecting to an analog signal source. Connect the wires from the device to the signal source so that the device acquires signals from analog channel 0. All MCC user guides are available on the Measurement Computing Data Acquisition Software CD that came with your device, and they are also on the MCC Product User's Manuals page at www.mccdaq.com/manuals.aspx. Run InstaCal and add your USB device To run InstaCal and add your MCC USB device to the InstaCal configuration, complete the following steps. 1. Run InstaCal from the Start»All Programs»Measurement Computing menu. The Plug and Play Board Detection dialog shows the installed MCC USB devices detected by InstaCal. A USB-1608FS is shown in this example. 2
2. Click OK to add the device to the configuration file. Your USB device is added to the InstaCal main window. 3. Select Exit from the File menu to close InstaCal. Download and Install the DASYLab Evaluation version To install the DASYLab Evaluation version, complete the following steps: 1. Click the DASYLAB V12 Evaluation Copy link on the Software/Drivers Downloads page at www.mccdaq.com/software.aspx to save the installation program. 2. Double-click DASYLab_12_0_1_ENG.exe from the download location, and click OK on the first dialog to extract the installation files to the default location. By default, the installation program runs automatically. 3. Exit all running programs and click Next. 4. Follow the instructions and click Next on the next three setup dialog boxes to select the installation directory and accept the license agreements. 5. Click Next on the Start Installation dialog box. The first step of the DASYLab installation is complete when the Installation Complete dialog box opens. 6. Click Next to launch the configurator. Configure DASYLab using the configurator To configure DASYLab using the configurator, complete the following steps: 1. On the Registration tab, enter your name (User) and the name of your Company in the User Information area. 2. Select the Install evaluation version checkbox, and click Continue. 3. On the Packages tab, click to expand the Data acquisition node, select Measurement Computing, click Enable, and then click Continue. 4. On the Options tab, select the file extensions you want to associate with DASYLab and click Finish. Refer to the Options topic in the Configurator section of the DASYLab help for explanations of these file types. 5. Click Yes to restart your computer immediately, or click No to restart your computer at a later time. Note 1: If you click No, do not run DASYLab until you restart your computer. When your computer restarts, the DASYLab Evaluation version is installed and ready to use with your MCC USB device. 3
Exercise: Acquiring, displaying, and writing analog data to file Run DASYLab To run DASYLab and view the MCC-DRV modules on the DASYLAB browser, complete the following steps: 1. Run DASYLab from the Start»All Programs»DASYLab 12.0 menu option. 2. Expand the Modules browser to view the MCC Data Acquisition modules in the MCC-DRV folder. Only the modules in this folder can be used with MCC data acquisition devices. Your next step is to add an Analog Input module to read analog data from your MCC USB device. Add an Analog Input module To add an MCC Analog Input module to the DASYLab worksheet, complete the following steps: 1. Drag and drop the Analog Input module onto the worksheet. DASYLab prompts you to select from installed MCC devices. 4
2. Select the analog channels on the USB device to use with DASYLAB and click OK. A USB-1608FS is shown in this example, but any Measurement Computing USB analog input device works with this exercise. 3. Double-click on the Analog Input module to open its module dialog box. By default, analog channel 0 is enabled. You can enable other channels by clicking on them. For this exercise, leave channel 0 enabled and all other channels disabled. 4. Change the Lower limit to -5.000 and the Upper limit to 5.000. 5. Click Measurement to open the Measurement Setup dialog. 6. Click Modify.to open the Modify Timebase dialog. 7. Change the Timebase to 10000, and click OK on the Modify Timebase, Measurement Setup, and Analog Input dialogs to close all three dialogs, save your settings, and return to the DASYLab worksheet. 5
Add a Y/t Chart module Follow these steps to add a graphical Y/t Chart module to the worksheet, and connect it to the Analog Input module to display the acquired signals on the chart. 1. Expand the Module browser to view the modules in the Display folder. 2. Drag and drop the Y/t Chart module onto the worksheet. In addition to the Y/t Chart module icon on the worksheet, there is also a Y/t Chart window minimized in the bottom left corner of the DASYLab worksheet window. The Y/t Chart window displays the data when you run the program. 3. Drag the Y/t Chart module so that its input touches the output of the Analog Input module, and then release the mouse button. A connection is made between the output of the Analog Input module and the input of the Y/t Chart module. Add a Write Data module Complete the following steps to add a Write Data module to the worksheet, and connect it to the Analog Input module output in order to write the analog data to a file. 1. Expand the Module browser to view the modules in the Files folder. 2. Drag and drop the Write Data module onto the worksheet. 6
3. Click on the connection line between the Analog Input module and the Y/t Chart module, and drag a new connection to the input of the Write Data module. This connects the output of the Analog Input module to the Write Data module. 4. Double click on the Write Data module to open the Write Data dialog. 5. Select ASCII from the File format list box. Your data will be saved in a plain text file that you can open with Notepad or another text editor or word processing application, as well as import to a spreadsheet application. 6. Click File to set up the data file with its default name (DEFWRITE.asc) on the Desktop, and click Save. 7. Click Options to open the Write Data: ASCII Format dialog. 8. Select the Tab option next to Separator and click OK. Each acquired sample will be separated by a tab in the file. 9. In the Decimal frame next to Number, verify the number of decimals that you want to store in the ASCII file. The default is 2. 10. In the Time format frame, verify the time format from the drop-down list. The default is Measurement time[hh:mm:ss], which is the elapsed time from the start of measurement. Choose Date+time from the list to store the actual date and time for each row of samples. 11. Click OK to close the Write Data dialog and return to the worksheet. 7
Run the worksheet to acquire, display, and write the data 1. This worksheet acquires data from the DEMO-BOARD using the Analog Input module, displays it using the Y/t Chart module, and writes the data to a file. To run the worksheet, complete the following steps: 2. Click Start on the DASYLab Function bar. 3. Click on the Restore Up icon on the Y/t Chart s title bar to expand it. The analog signal acquired by your MCC USB device is plotted and displayed on the Y/t Chart00 window. 4. Click Stop on the DASYLab Function bar to stop the program. 8
5. Open the DEFWRITE.asc file on the Desktop using Notepad. An example is shown here.. 6. Exit DASYLab, and save the worksheet when prompted. Learn more about DASYLab and the MCC-DRV modules. You have successfully acquired and displayed analog data from your USB device using DASYLab. To learn more about the MCC DASYLab modules, select MCC-DRV»Help from the DASYLab Help menu. 9
QS DASYLab-MCCDRV-USB.docx Measurement Computing Corporation 10 Commerce Way Suite 1008 Norton, Massachusetts 02766 (508) 946-5100 Fax: (508) 946-9500 E-mail: info@mccdaq.com www.mccdaq.com