How Does the NI PCI-4070 AC Voltage Range Selection Works In Measurement?

Updated Aug 12, 2024

Reported In

Hardware

  • PCI-4070

Issue Details

I have a PCI-4070 and from the AC voltage specification of PCI-4070, I saw a few ranges starting from 50mV, 500mV, 5V, 50V and 300V. I would like to know how the range selection works if I measure a 4.9V?

The DMM will select the 5V range since the measured value was the nearest to 5V. If my measured voltage is 5.9V, will the range goes into the 50V range or the 5V range?

Or is there an internal factor used within the PCI-4070 to determine the ranges?

Solution

You should go with the higher nearest voltage range. In the case of 5.9V, the range will be 50V.

The DMM has signal conditioning circuitry, for different ranges there is attenuator circuitry that defines the attenuation ratio before the signal gets measured by the ADC.

If you try to measure 5.9 V at the 5 V range you won't get a correct measurement and the DMM will return the "Out-of-Range" and/or "NaN" value that indicates an out-of-range situation.

There is a narrow boundary above the DMM's range where the DMM will still return a meaningful measurement. It is 105% of the range, above this number the DMM will return NAN and over-range warning.