Asus EeePC Initial experiences

[jemandel]

I just got done with my first day of using an EPC 1000H for data acquisition via Labview (8.6), and thought people might be interested in my results.

My application requires acquisition of 2 channels of respiratory data at 50 Hz using a USB-6008 using DAQmx. I acquire single samples and log these to a TDMS file, and display the last 4 minutes of data to a strip chart, while allowing the investigator to enter time-stamped events from the panel. I have not made any attempt to make the VI highly efficient, as I want the user interface responsive.

My move to the EPC was motivated by me dropping my MacBook Pro during a study on Thursday and shearing off a bunch of keys; I needed a working system by today, as we had 4 patients scheduled for our study. I got my order in to Amazon at 4:55 PM, and had the EPC at my house when I got home Friday. It took about 2 hours to get the thing configured and running. I put TortoiseSVN on it, and synced it to my repository with no problem. I put a USB keyboard on the MacBook, built a standalone version of the application, and an installer with the runtime environment on a USB disk, and had the first pass running in 45 minutes.

The next issue was redesigning the interface for the less spacious screen. I made some 1024 x 600 rectangles, fit the front panels inside these,  turned off menus, window titles, etc., and set the XP task bar to hidden, and by build 1.0.9 had a nice full screen version with many improvements over what I had done before. I played with it Saturday with my signal generator, and with supreme confidence, brought it to work this morning.

The bottom line - it just worked! The interface was responsive, there were no hiccups, and the data files were intact. I'm not sure I'd want to try to wire up a major VI on the EPC, but I probably could. I don't know what the top end is for sampling, but for physiologic signals, it seems fine. I'll have a better view on what the thing can do when I try implementing some of my real-time control applications on it in a few months, but for now, I'm happy. I just hope my new keyboard comes in tomorrow.

Jeff E Mandel MD MS

Clinical Associate Professor of Anesthesiology

University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine 

[Wiebe@CARYA]

Thanks for sharing, this is great information.

A few questions, just for reference:

Does the EEE PC have XP or Linux (with one) installed?

What version of LabVIEW are you using?

Regards,

Wiebe.

[dan_u]

@Wiebe: the answers to your questions are in the text:

XP

LabVIEW 8.6

[jemandel]

The EPC-1000H is the version with XP Home. I used LV 8.6. I forgot to mention that another factor in getting the EPC was that I wanted to use TDMS and DAQmx full, which aren't available on Mac or Linux. I could work around the differences between DAQmx base and full, but TDMS was a more elegant solution to organizing all of the study data in a single file that I moved the project to XP. It was, however, a major nuisance having to reboot my MacBook Pro in Bootcamp, and my Matlab license is for Mac, so when I go to analyze the data, it will be a nuisance. I'd add my name to the list of people who would like TDMS support on Mac OS (and Linux).

Jeff E Mandel MD MS

[Wiebe@CARYA]

"dan_u" <x@no.email> wrote in message
news:1231936806024-835271@exchange.ni.com...
> @Wiebe: the answers to your questions are in the text:XPLabVIEW 8.6&nbsp;

Dan,

You're right, sorry about that. My outlook puts all the text in one blur
behind each other, so it's a bit hard to read, (and I don't read that well
either).

Regards,

Wiebe.

[Nathan]

jemandel,
 
Because most netbooks (per the most common definition) are Atom and Windows XP-based, NI's software and hardware runs well if users/developers are aware and cognizant of it's limitations.
 
I ran a few benchmarks, and the typical netbook with USB 2.0 ports and 1.6 GHz Intel Atom CPUs can handle most high-performance USB data acquisition devices. In fact, with our patent-pending NI signal streaming technology for USB, (http://zone.ni.com/devzone/cda/tut/p/id/4636) we were able to stream over 20MB/s over USB, streaming bi-directional analog input, analog output and clocked DIO. However, signal analysis such as FFTs on Atom processors is very limited.
 
Because of it's low power, low-cost, and small form-factor, it facilitates mobile measurements and datalogging with unprecedented portability.
Netbooks are ultimately lowering the cost of virtual instrumentation.
 
Thank you for sharing your experience.
 
Nathan Yang | Data Acquisition Product Manager | National Instruments

Message Edited by Nathan on 02-04-2009 03:16 PM

[TroyK]

Hi Jeff, nice post.

I was contemplating doing a similar thing. The only problem I have is that one of my requirements is that it goes into standby automatically after acquisition (to reduce power consumed) and wakes up from an external switch input. I need to leave the system in a car for weeks logging data associated with ignition cycles.

Do you have any idea what the EeePC is like going into and waking up from standby with USB-DAQ devices present?

I got a system working about 18 months ago with an ARK-3383 but the standby stopped working. (It seems to go into standby but no reduced running current and it never wakes up!) I'm looking for an alternative. The EeePC would look promising if it had more reliable standby.

(I guess I should be more specific about the standby, S3 standby is what I need.)

Message Edited by Troy K on 03-18-2009 11:50 AM

[Margaret F.]

Hello,

Thank you for posting to the NI Forums!! Since your question seems to be more about the EeePC, we're going to let the community here at ni.com help you out. Also, I wanted to point your towards the Asus EeePC forums as well. Hope this helps!

[TroyK]

Thanks, I did have a look at that forum too.

It doesn't really discuss how plugging in a NI-USB6009 affects the PC going into standby though.

A USB DAQ device can cause all sorts of problems going into and coming out of standby.

I thought that the EeePC community would be much less likely to have experience with NI-USB6009 than the LabVIEW community.

[Jordan F]

Hi Troy,

Unfortunately we do not have an EeePC that I can find at NI currently to be able to test this issue.  If anyone who has posted above has experienced anything similar it would be awesome if you could help Troy out! 

Message Edited by Jordan F on 03-19-2009 01:44 PM