Video National Instruments VirtualBench Review, Teardown & Experiments

[Hugoneus]

A close look at the VirtualBench lab-in-a-box from National Instruments:

You can watch the video here: [1 Hour & 1 Minute]
youtu.be/8N2MhA9N77I

More videos at The Signal Path:
http://www.TheSignalPath.com

[BFX]

A close look at the VirtualBench lab-in-a-box from National Instruments:

You can watch the video here: [1 Hour & 1 Minute]
youtu.be/8N2MhA9N77I

More videos at The Signal Path:
http://www.TheSignalPath.com

Thank you for next nice video

I'm little disappointed from quality of cables. 
And one function can be very helpful: sweeping of function generator. 
I'm waiting for software upgrade 

[HighVoltage]

Although this is something I would not consider for my lab, I really liked your review.
You have always a really great balance between review, repair and experiments.
Thank you for the effort you put in to your videos.

[Dr. Frank]

Nice, interesting video! 

Frank

[rx8pilot]

Can't wait to see this one. I have made the commitment to Labview but have not settled on all the hardware. I did look at this system and was wishing there was something between this and a full PXI chassis which can gt really expensive.

[Hugoneus]

Can't wait to see this one. I have made the commitment to Labview but have not settled on all the hardware. I did look at this system and was wishing there was something between this and a full PXI chassis which can gt really expensive.

As I mentioned, if you like to play around with LabView this would be a fun instrument to play with.

[Neganur]

Finally got my quote from NI (the instrument has been on backorder for a while now). It's 2.5k EUR (USD 2,830) after VAT and I think I will say no.

I think I would have bought it for 2k EUR but 2.5k amplifies the points I did not like about it a little too much.

Originally, I was looking for a programmable three channel power supply, and since many of my projects are of embedded nature the digital I/O and mini-logic analyser were a welcome feature. Other projects are of such nature that I need to power a device and verify current consumption, measure voltages at test points, switch some I/O lines to change an RF path, maybe send a SPI command and make an amplitude /phase measurement between two LF signals (i.e. I/Q).

The VirtualBench feature list is really a good match for what I have in mind and it's such a nice form factor & can be controlled with e.g. C/Python/Labview. But to use some of the features, like using the I/O to talk SPI or I2C, you really have to use custom scripting since the VirtualBench application itself doesn't support it (yet).

My humble list of gripes:

• Some scope measurements are only available via the VirtualBench application (waveform measurements, math)
• It sounds like the memory is shared between the LA and the scope? enable several channels and you may end up with 4kSa (but this might be rare)
• No sense wires. Yeah I can probably hack it to provide it but damn, there's already no binding posts on the front panel - surely a wider header for the PSU connector would have been possible.
• Can't enable/disable the PSU channels separately; at least I did not see it in the C or LabVIEW API.
• The 25V channels can only supply 500mA. (Now, I don't need 5A but 1 A would have been more useful.)

Scope and function generator are useful addons and I suppose if you're setting up some data logging with it you can still use your main scope etc.

For now, I think I'm better off buying a separate PSU since the VirtualBench just doubles a lot of the instruments I already own without adding anything or replacing completely.
A good programmable triple channel PSU costs somewhere in the vicinity of 1-1.5k EUR and the VirtualBench doesn't do the PSU part well enough in my opinion.