Selecting replacement hardware for an obsolete test system

Challenge

Our client’s design validation test system was about 10 years old. They realized that the NI hardware in the test system was soon to be obsolete and they would have to upgrade it someday.

That day came sooner than expected when an issue in the test cell room caused excessive temperatures and smoke, overheating some PXI hardware and other components in the test rack. The test system had to be upgraded. (Everyone was OK – the issue was handled quickly.)

The timing of this event was especially unfortunate, as they were in the middle of some testing that needed to be completed to meet a schedule so that they didn’t  hold up the  design team.

So, the client made the decision to replace the existing PXI modules with the same type, rather than upgrading directly – that upgrade would have to come later. But, even after replacing the failed modules with the same part numbers, something wasn’t correct since the system didn’t work.

Working toward a solution together

Our client contacted us for help get them past this hurdle.

It turned out that the software for the original system was developed by a one-man system integrator with whom we occasionally collaborate. Our client asked that integrator to help, but he was unable to respond rapidly, so we worked with this integrator to pick his brain about possible causes, but no obvious solution was forthcoming.

We dug into the issue, which was a timing error, and discovered that one of the replacement boards needed a hardware driver update, even though the catalog part number was the same as the module being replaced.

This troubleshooting was best suited for someone with intimate knowledge of NI hardware – it took longer to figure out the issue than it did to fix it.

With that issue resolved, and after our client performed their tests, they asked us to start designing a test system to replace the soon-to-be obsolete hardware with new hardware.

Replacement with new hardware was not a one-to-one swap, making this design a perfect fit for our Hardware Selection Services consulting.

We took the details and requirements of the existing test system and figured out the replacement hardware. We needed to consider channel counts, acquisition rates, and costs. For example, the Sound and Vibration card in the original system had 8 channels but a replacement only had either 4 or 6 channels. Other tradeoffs were also made.

Our approach for this type of consultation:

1. starts with recommendations to the client,
2. followed by discussion about pros and cons,
3. and ending (maybe after a few iterations) with a replacement system that meets the functionality of the original system. The client even added some additional functionality he’d been wanting for a while.

The cost of this consultation service was covered by purchasing of the hardware from Viewpoint, and, in this instance, that portion of our service offering worked to the client’s advantage because we worked with him to split the order into two parts to help him meet his budget and scheduling needs due to some long-lead items. Specifically, we worked with NI to swap a controller running the latest version of Windows with one that ran the previous version so that we could hit shipping dates 5 weeks earlier than otherwise. Our experience with the NI buying process was critical to rectifying this situation; a typical NI customer wouldn’t have thought to check for this solution.

After the arrival of the new system, we were contracted by the client to rework the software to use the new hardware. Updated drivers were needed, of course, but since the original integrator had given the client the application LabVIEW source code, we could decipher how it operated and were able to determine how to incorporate the new and different channel configurations per card plus supporting the functionality that the additional cards offered. Once the configuration of this new hardware setup was completed, we tested that the application was once again working as expected.

Benefits

Working with an integrator that offers both consulting for selecting new NI hardware coupled with turnkey test system design and build capabilities enabled our client to move from a broken system to a new one in stages.

This approach enabled them to complete their scheduled tests as quickly as possible while giving them a path to the future based on the new system that we helped them build and deploy.

How we helped

For this project, we mostly helped with the selection and replacement of NI hardware with a little side help from some system integration services to bring the test system application software to full functionality.

System Overview