There are tachometer signals available on the vehicle CAN-bus. Can I use these signals instead of connecting my own tachometer signal?

A simple question should have a simple answer and that answer is “No”.

As usual, however, life is never that simple. (more…)

Continue ReadingThere are tachometer signals available on the vehicle CAN-bus. Can I use these signals instead of connecting my own tachometer signal?

Automatic Tacho Processing Using A Prosig P8000

The digital tacho channel in a P8000 system offers better time resolution by dividing the main sample period by 16. However it is sometimes difficult to know what level the threshold should be set to so a facility to help you find the optimum level has now been added to the acquisition software. (more…)

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Analyzing Shaft Twist And Repairing Damaged Tachos

This post discusses analyzing shaft twist and at the same time handling the less than perfect data that we have all come across.

A shaft has been instrumented with two shaft encoders, one at each end. Each shaft encoder gives out a once/rev pulse and a 720 pulses/rev signal. Each signal was digitised at 500,000 samples/second. The objective is to measure the twist in the shaft and analyze into orders. The test stand was already equipped with a data acquisition system so a Prosig acquisition system was not required. Instead it was decided that the data captured by the resident system would be imported into the DATS software. The only format available from the customer system was ‘comma separated variables’ or CSV. This is not ideal as it is an ASCII based format and therefore creates very large files.

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A Simple Automotive Noise Test

In a recent article we described how the Prosig P8000 hardware and DATS software had been used to help Dalmeny Racing diagnose a problem with an exhaust bracket on their Formula Ford racing car. Whilst the car was instrumented for structural tests on the exhaust the opportunity was taken to carry out a simple automotive noise test. It was felt that these would provide some useful “real world” data as well as maybe providing some extra information regarding the exhaust bracket failure. After analysing and animating the hammer data it became clear that the engine runup data wouldn’t be needed. However, it was decided that some analysis should be carried out to see if the noise and vibration data backed up the conclusions of the other tests.

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