LabView+Construction+and+Signal+Display

= 8.Labview Results = **Date: **19th July 2011- 4th August 2011 Following on from the wind profiling experiment, the team now entered into the final part of the project by interpreting the acquired data into LabView.

**Experiment: **Information and measurement gathering for LabView.

**Apparatus: ** **Instruments: ** **Software: ** **Methodology: ** For the past number of weeks, the team had been familiarising itself with acquiring measurements, performing calculations, recording results and writing up reports with the information obtained. It was now time to show all these results with the aid of the software package known as LabView which is also a module included in the teams current semester and which fits nicely into the learning curve for the given project. As per the project brief, the pin-outs (0-2.5V DC) were connected to the DAQ analogue inputs for the various variables and acquired signal analogue input voltage terminals assigned to the pin-outs as follows: Figure 46: Configuring pin connector to DAQ card **Procedure: ** A VI was now created in LabView with components such as meters, wave charts and numeric indicators in the front panel and in the block diagram components such as the DAQ assistant and various mathematical formulas’. Having allocated the pin-outs to the DAQ analogue terminals on the VI created using LabView, the wind tunnel was turned on along with the PV panel. LabView would process the analogue input signals digitally so as to be viewed on the pc screen. The battery voltage would be first to be displayed and a reading of 1.2 Volts was indicated on the front panel. When measured directly with a multi-meter on the 25 pin connector, almost 10 Volts was measured. The team then realised that Marlecs formula sheet had to be taken into account i.e. in the block diagram, the voltage of 1.2 had to be divided by 2.5 (signal ref) and the result multiplied by 20 to give 9.6 Volts equivalent to the measured voltage. Formulas for each of the variables would have to be entered into each individual block diagram in order to get e fairly reasonable result from LabView. Signals could now be captured on LabView and screen shots taken for future reports **Results: ** Figure 47: Battery Voltage (Source: LabView)
 * Wind Tunnel
 * Rutland 913 Wind Charger
 * <span style="color: black; font-family: 'Verdana','sans-serif'; font-size: 16px; line-height: 150%;">Axial Fan
 * <span style="color: black; font-family: 'Verdana','sans-serif'; font-size: 16px; line-height: 150%;">Variable Speed Drive
 * <span style="font-family: 'Verdana','sans-serif'; font-size: 16px; line-height: 150%;">Anemometer (Mobile)
 * <span style="font-family: 'Verdana','sans-serif'; font-size: 16px; line-height: 150%;">Ammemeter
 * <span style="font-family: 'Verdana','sans-serif'; font-size: 16px; line-height: 150%;">Digital Multi-meter
 * <span style="font-family: 'Verdana','sans-serif'; font-size: 16px; line-height: 150%;">Digital Thermometer
 * <span style="font-family: 'Verdana','sans-serif'; font-size: 16px; line-height: 150%;">Lux Meter
 * <span style="font-family: 'Verdana','sans-serif'; font-size: 16px; line-height: 150%;">DAQ card
 * <span style="font-family: 'Verdana','sans-serif'; font-size: 16px; line-height: 150%;">LabView
 * Pin-outs || DAQ Terminal Inputs ||
 * 3 Wind Charger Current || AI0 ||
 * 4 PV Current || AI4 ||
 * 5 Load Current || AI1 ||
 * 6 Wind Speed || AI5 ||
 * 7 Battery Voltage || AI2 ||
 * 8 Temperature || AI6 ||
 * 10 Light Level || AI3 ||
 * 11 Fixed Ref. || AI7 ||

Figure 48: PV Current (Source: LabView) <span style="color: black; font-family: 'Verdana','sans-serif'; font-size: 16px; line-height: 150%;">Over the next number of Labs, the team would display more of the variable signals within their correct voltage and current parameters according to marlecs’ formulas and entered into the block diagram accordingly using the various components and tools provided by LabView. <span style="color: black; font-family: 'Verdana','sans-serif'; font-size: 16px; line-height: 150%;">The team then decided to measure the wind speed at the various frequency increments using the square waves displayed on LabView (much the same as what was done with PicoScope). This was achieved by positioning the modified anemometer at profile zone 1, grid 4 having the fastest wind speeds and taking readings and screen shots from 50 Hertz down to 10 Hertz as indicated in the Labview screen shot shown below: Figure 49: Wind speed verses frequency (Source: LabView) <span style="color: black; font-family: 'Verdana','sans-serif'; font-size: 16px; line-height: 150%;">The following results were obtained and a graph was compiled to indicate the wind speed plotted against frequency: Figure 50: Wind Speed verses Frequency Graph (Source: Microsoft Excel) <span style="color: black; font-family: 'Verdana','sans-serif'; font-size: 16px; line-height: 150%;">As now the team members had familiarised themselves with LabView, it was time to set up a LabView program which would capture and record signals in real time from the wind tunnel and display them as required. One program would be set up to measure and indicate the following variables: <span style="color: black; font-family: 'Verdana','sans-serif'; font-size: 16px; line-height: 150%;">The program was successfully constructed and implemented and as it is quite large, has been included in //Appendix A2.// Various indicators and alarms have also been included. **<span style="font-family: 'Verdana','sans-serif'; font-size: 16px; line-height: 115%;">LabView Conclusion ** <span style="font-family: 'Verdana','sans-serif'; font-size: 16px; line-height: 150%;">Having carried out tests and measurements on the wind tunnel and associated equipment with the relevant instruments, the task was made some what easier when it came to implementing procedures and programmes as knowledge had been acquired and would be utilised by the team. Calculated results would be compared to measured results and the use of PicoScope software would be very beneficial to the team before LabView was implemented. Having obtained the voltages (and Hertz for wind speed) for the variables and using the parameter ranges as supplied by Marlec, the team could see how the measured instrument results were broadly in line with the LabView VI indicators. However, with the wind speed square wave measurement, there was no other way of verifying the wind speed results, although the average of the first wind profile at 50 Hertz at around 10m/s was roughly in line with the calculated fan speed of 9.83m/s. Studying the LabView computer interface technology module was also very helpful when it came to constructing and implementing programmes. Also, it was not possible to confirm temperature and light level results as no calibrated look-up tables were available
 * Hertz ||  Divisions(Hertz)  ||  M/S=(HZ/Divs*0.765)+0.35  ||  M/S  ||
 * 10 ||  7.5  ||  (7.58*0.765)+0.35  ||  6.09  ||
 * 20 ||  13  ||  (13*0.765)+0.35  ||  10.3  ||
 * 30 ||  21  ||  (21*0.765)+0.35  ||  16.42  ||
 * 40 ||  26  ||  (26*0.765)+0.35  ||  20.24  ||
 * 50 ||  28  ||  (28*0.765)+0.35  ||  21.77  ||
 * <span style="color: black; font-family: 'Verdana','sans-serif'; font-size: 16px; line-height: 150%;">Wind Charge Current.
 * <span style="color: black; font-family: 'Verdana','sans-serif'; font-size: 16px; line-height: 150%;">PV Current.
 * <span style="color: black; font-family: 'Verdana','sans-serif'; font-size: 16px; line-height: 150%;">Battery Voltage.
 * <span style="color: black; font-family: 'Verdana','sans-serif'; font-size: 16px; line-height: 150%;">Load Current.
 * <span style="color: black; font-family: 'Verdana','sans-serif'; font-size: 16px; line-height: 150%;">Temperature.
 * <span style="color: black; font-family: 'Verdana','sans-serif'; font-size: 16px; line-height: 150%;">Light Level.
 * <span style="color: black; font-family: 'Verdana','sans-serif'; font-size: 16px; line-height: 150%;">Wind Speed
 * <span style="color: black; font-family: 'Verdana','sans-serif'; font-size: 16px; line-height: 150%;">Data Logging sample.