Does the USB-6211 Take Encoder Measurements?

Updated Dec 16, 2022

Reported In

Hardware

  • USB-6211

Driver

  • NI-DAQmx

Operating System

  • Windows

Issue Details

  • I am trying to take angular displacement measurements for a torsion application and have encoders for these measurements. Does the USB-6211 I have work to take these measurements? 
  • I would like to use a quadrature encoder to take linear displacement measurements, can I use this device with my encoder?

Solution

Yes, taking encoder measurements calls for counter input channels on your DAQ device. From the USB-6211 Specifications you can note that the device has 2 counter / timer channels and that it can be used with X1, X2 and X4 quadrature encoders with Z-channel reloading, as well as with two-pulse encoders. 
In addition, NI MAX shows that the device supports the creation of counter input tasks for angular position and linear position measurements, as seen on the following image:

Additional Information

Other considerations may include ensuring that the channel count, clock frequency, device accuracy, and resolution are sufficient for your application.