Frequently asked questions
Should a particular piece of jargon, functionality or terminology featured on the site prove troublesome, this is the place to come. We have compiled a list of FAQs for HIL, MIL, SIL, RCP and other commonly-asked questions relating to this website and our products. For good measure, we have decided to define some terms commonly referred to during articles here.
Should you encounter further difficulties, why not contact us, so we can assist directly?
The trial can operate as all three licence types: Full Developer, GUI Designer and Run-time, giving you a full appraisal of all versions of the software.
Should you wish to purchase VISUALCONNX at a later date, we can provide the necessary licence keys via email, so there is no further requirement for an internet connection at all.
Depending on the complexity of your application, system requirements for VISUALCONNX are relatively low.
Generally speaking, any desktop PC running Windows XP or later will be acceptable.
If you are concerned that the PC you will use with VISUALCONNX may not be sufficiently powerful, please let us know your system’s specification and we will ask our technical staff to confirm compatibility.
A key issue is being able to test and demonstrate there are no low power, or quiescent power, issues with your system design.
This is especially true for systems that consume relatively high power when operating, but very low power when in a dormant or standby state.
Measurement of quiescent currents should therefore take place from the creation of production-intent hardware, through sub-system testing to complete vehicle hardness validation.
Sens-X uses optical coupling from a very high-resolution, miniature, front end circuit to a high-speed digital messaging system.
It replaces automotive fuses and plugs directly into the fuse box of a lab-car or vehicle prototype, avoiding cutting wires or separating cable harnesses.
A replaceable built-in fuse protects the circuit.
Sens-X is pseudo optically isolated.
This is, it is fully optically isolated unless you require voltage measurement, in which case 0.25mA may be drawn; a figure that should be negligible.
Ultimately, Sens-X is optimised to achieve a very high dynamic range and excellent quiescent current measurement.
We are confident we can achieve class-leading accuracy in this type of application.
You can use any suitable CAN hardware/software to receive the data.
While configuring, you have a choice to either poll each reading individually or set to stream readings over the CAN bus.
We supply configuration software and a simple CAN interface to allow you to test and configure the units, but as stated above this is not required during actual application use.
Sens-X features support for measurement streaming as part of its profiles feature.
This allows users to simply load a configuration and fuse set in order to quickly setup the streaming of desired fuse signals.
The supplied monitoring form, GDSP GUI, then reads this streamed data.
This update makes the process of initialising streaming fuse measurement quicker and simpler.
It also allows configurations to be shared via the transfer of a small data file.
Finally, the update allows users to log streamed data across a range of selected fuses, plotting the results as required for analysis and allowing engineers greater and more immediate visibility over test results.
Depending on the complexity of your application, system requirements for VISUALCONNX are relatively low.
Generally speaking, any desktop PC running Windows XP or later will be acceptable.
If you are concerned that the PC you will use with VISUALCONNX may not be sufficiently powerful, please let us know your system’s specification and we will ask our technical staff to confirm compatibility.
MICROGen is able to log CAN data.
No additional hardware would be needed to configure logging and extract logged data.
On the software side, MICROGen is a Simulink enabled control unit and so would require an appropriate model to perform the logging required, which we are able to provide.
Additionally, our real-time systems interfacing package VISUALCONNX is able to configure logging and extract data – we would typically supply VISUALCONNX alongside MICROGen.
The SD memory within MICROGen can be easily replaced to enable long-term logging.
You would be able to either simply plug the SD card into a PC to retrieve the data.
You could also stream the data directly to PC via VISUALCONNX.
The MICROGen can cope with 8 channels of PWM typically running at 2A per channel @ 2 KHz duty cycle.
If you wish to play at a higher rate than 500us it is possible to do so via the optional LVTGO BNC input, driven from an arbitrary waveform generator that can generate signals in excess of 100 KHz analogue bandwidth.
The advantage of software waveform play is these waveforms are stored in flash memory for immediate use.