Can I use the new Intel Compute Stick to run cDAQ9174 and Labview 2014 VI's?

[dav2010]

It looks like the computing power and memory are adequate, but, not sure how to interface the cDAQ hardware with the Compute Stick...blue tooth?

[WillMck]

dav2010, 

What are your specific application needs? If you could explain a bit more about what you are trying to accomplish in using the compute stick that would be helpful. 

Technically speaking, the NI DAQmx drivers are supported on Windows 8. Because the Compute Stick is so new, do you know what the Compute Stick is designed to support? I would imagine that your performance characteristics are going to be extremely limited depending on the desired application. 

Are you just trying to read and store data? Read and Broadcast data? If you could provide a more detailed description of what you would like to accomplish, we would be happy to help as best we can. 

[dav2010]

Hi Will,

My understanding is that the Intel Compute Stick is running Windows 8.1.  I have USB-cDAQ 9174 with NI 9211 and 9401.  I am running vi's that read voltage and output serial commands to motor controllers.  I am using also an NI 9401 to measure encoder period using the counter built into the cDAQ9174.  The encoder period value is also used in the vi to generate the motor commands.   I currently use a Dell laptop PC running Windows 7.  My thought is that a $149 compute stick is nice and cheap and small for the kind of applications that I have.  I am not collecting or processing large quantities of data.  I am using the DAQ and modules as an ongoing process control tool, which actually operates at a fairly slow rate, e.g. 14S/s, and a few serial commands output per second.  I am not interested in broadcasting data. I am interested in reading and processing data (within the vi) and then issuing serial commands.  I hope that description is enough to help you understand my general application.

They say that it has Bluetooth 4.0 for connectivity.  Can the cDAQ chassis communicate via Bluetooth?  They claim that the stick can run any kind of program that would run on a Windows (or Linux) PC.  It has quad-core Intel® Atom™ processor and 32G storage.  Is 32G enough to load LV 2014 and associated drivers?  I seem to recall that the drivers I have downloaded are occupying quite a bit of memory on my machine.  It also has an SD slot to expand th storage to 128G.

Thanks for your help.

Dave

[crossrulz]

This article shows that it has a USB port.  So that's how you should connect up to your cDAQ.  The harddrive space is the only thing that remote concerns me when looking at the specs I have found.

[dav2010]

Well, I have Application Builder, so, if I convert my VI to an application, I should be able to see how much space will be required to install the executable.  Is that right?  And, if it is small enough to fit on the Compute STick, then, should it be OK?

Thanks

[Dennis_Knutson]

The size of the executable is minor as you should know if you've ever created an exe. The runtime engine is much larger and you would also need at least the runtime versions of any hardware driver such as DAQmx.

[dav2010]

Hi Dennis,

Yes, I have Application builder, but, I have not ever used it to create an executable, and that was the essence of my question.  This would be the first try at creating an executable, since I doubt the entire Labview 2015 with all the required drivers would fit on the Compute Stick's 32G of storage.

When you create an executable with it,how can you estimate how much memory space must you plan to have available?

Thanks!

[Dennis_Knutson]

Add the size of the exe, the size of the runtime, and the size of any hardware drivers. The size of the hardware drivers is somewhat problematic as what you have installed is likely the full versions. The DAQmx core is considerably smaller. The size also varies with the version. To be exact, create a simple VI that uses hardware and build an exe. You would then create an installer. The installer would need to include the exe and all runtimes. Run the installer on a pc that does not have LabVIEW. If the size of the installer itself is too large, then you can skip the installation.