Help and Infos for NI "DaqCard-6036E"

[Joshi-1337]

Hello there,

i have absolutly no idea where this pcmcia card came from but im holding it right now in my hands.. The National Instruments DaqCard-6036.

Now i wonder if i could use this in 2023? (just to play arround or even use it in any real scenario) 

Where can i get any drivers or software for this card?

And the biggest question what can this thing do? I had a look on some datasheets but didnt get this questionmark out of my head.

Thanks to all who got some informations or even a whole pack of help 

greetings from Germany 

Joshi

[Gribo]

1. Do you have a PCMCIA slot on your laptop? No? PCMCIA to USB adapter?
2. Without a costly support contract, NI won't give you the time of day. Good luck.
3. NI has the DAQmx software and library, you can use VB, C# or LabVIEW to acquire samples and drive GPIOs - nothing that a modern Arduino can't do.

[Joshi-1337]

Thanks for the reply 

Yes i have an notebook with an pcmcia slot

is there any opensource software? or which version of labview is needed to get this card to work?

what are the "normal" uses of this card? or more likely what is it used for.

Mentioned that an ardunio could do the same sounds more like an software thing to me, im right with that or did i missunderstood this ?

greetings Joshi

[switchabl]

It's a data acquisition (DAQ) module, it has a number of analog inputs that you can read from the computer (there's a few analog outputs and some digital IO as well). It might, for example, have been used to stream data from multiple sensors in a physics experiment or to check test point voltages in an automated test setup.

The specs are actually not bad (16 single-ended/8 differential inputs, 16 bits, 200 kS/s, 4 switchable ranges). https://docs-be.ni.com/bundle/370721c/raw/resource/enus/370721c.pdf
You could certainly add an ADC and an analog front-end to an Arduino to build your own. But I don't think there's one that has similar capabilities on board already? And you would still need the software.

The latest DAQmx version with support for your card seems to be 19.0 and it looks like it's Windows 32-bit only:
https://www.ni.com/en/support/documentation/compatibility/17/devices-and-modules-no-longer-supported-in-ni-daqmx-17-6-and-lat.html
https://www.ni.com/pdf/manuals/374768ab.html#NoSupportVista
https://www.ni.com/en/support/downloads/drivers/download.ni-daq-mx.html#301173

You should be able to do a basic functional test using the NI MAX software (comes with the driver package). But normally you would then write your own software based on the C/.NET/Python/Labview API. And you would still need a suitable VHDCI cable and breakout box to actually connect anything. Those tend to be pretty expensive but maybe you could make your own from an old SCSI cable or something.

[zrq]

If you can find the corresponding connector and a laptop old enough to have the PCMCIA slot, then I think the software side is easy. NI is not bad at preserving old software archive.
Actually I got an exactly the same DAQCard-6036E last month, although I have easier to use NI USB devices and no old laptops to make it work. In general, these NI DAQ cards do 16 bits DAC/ADC reasonably well, which is certainly better than most toys built upon Arduino.

[Joshi-1337]

Hey,

thanks for the replies


I actually have 3 Notebooks that have an pcmcia slot. The one i tested the card in, regocgnized it right away (running win xp 32bit sp3)

To the "connector problem" i got an vhcdi 68 pin to dsub type connector (so building a pigtail oder breakout box wouldn't be a big problem)

im going to try to install the driver given in the link from @switchabl but then i still have no software to use 

[RoGeorge]

Aside from the ready made DAQ software, National Instruments hardware should work with their graphical programming language called LabVIEW.  It's all drag and dropping blocks, and you can build your own instruments, e.g. an oscilloscope with display on the PC (for your card), in minutes.

Search in which version of LabVIEW there still was support for your card.  For example, random search result for DaqCard-6036E LabVIEW https://forums.ni.com/t5/LabVIEW/OverflowError-DAQCard-6036E/m-p/428037/highlight/true gives a hint that at least in LabVIEW 8.2 (cca 2006) there was support for that card.

LabVIEW used to have a one month free trial for the older versions.  Current versions of LabVIEW have a freeware license for non commercial/home use (or so I've heard).

[Gribo]

There is the community edition which is free for non-commercial uses.

[switchabl]

The last compatible Labview version seems to be 2019 which is unfortunately not available as a free Community Edition.

Also, the DAQmx download I linked (19.0) probably needs at least Windows 7. For XP I think you'd want 15.5.1 (available on the same page).

[Joshi-1337]

Sounds like a "oh no" to me...

is there really no opensource software to control the outputs and the inputs ?

[RoGeorge]

Why don't you install either DAQmx or an older LabVIEW?
Both are free to download and use for non-commercial.

Alternatively, install only NI-VISA (also free to download and install even for commercial use).  IIRC, NI-VISA will also install any hardware drivers, too, and from there take the user manual and use it as a VISA instrument with any other software, like Octave (or Matlab), or PyVISA, etc.

[switchabl]

The (free) DAQmx driver package should come with NI MAX which allows you to control the inputs and outputs "by hand". But the main selling point of these devices is really that you can control them from your own software. Labview is one way to do that but APIs for other languages are available as well (like C, .NET, Python, Matlab), most of which are free.

Alternatively, install only NI-VISA (also free to download and install even for commercial use).  IIRC, NI-VISA will also install any hardware drivers, too, and from there take the user manual and use it as a VISA instrument with any other software, like Octave (or Matlab), or PyVISA, etc.

NI-VISA is for instrument control, the equivalent for DAQs is NI-DAQmx. There are official Python bindings now (https://github.com/ni/nidaqmx-python).

EDIT: There is actually open-source support on Linux through Comedi (https://www.comedi.org/hardware.html) but that is maybe not the most user-friendly way to go.

[alm]

Sounds like a "oh no" to me...

is there really no opensource software to control the outputs and the inputs ?

A DAQ is typically used when you need to acquire or control a variety of parameters. So from what I've seen they are generally integrated in some piece of custom software. Like I remember reading about forum user joeqsmith using a basic DAQ to simulate part of a motor cycle. That's not something you're going to find any off the shelf software for. So generally DAQ manufacturers give you drivers and libraries to control the DAQs from your own program, like LabVIEW, MATLAB, Python, etc. Keysight's BenchVue supports their DAQ, but that won't help you and is probably quite expensive.

There is sigrok, but it doesn't appear to support any DAQs according to their website.

I would recommend to look into software support before buying something if it is something that heavily relies on software. So not so much for a bench power supply, but definitely for a DAQ or any kind of hardware that relies on computer control and lacks its own front panel.

[zrq]

If you are OK with it, LabVIEW is trivial to pirate, just search around and you may find a small exe that activates LabVIEW editions from ancient to 2023. Or you can either try to hack with the daqmx python binding or using the C++ API, although your mileage may vary, depends on your skill.

There is one thing for sure, you will have to do some programming, it may be just dragging a few boxes together in LabVIEW or writing tens of lines of straightforward code in Python. It may be a challenge for people used to work with ready made front pannels, but this also gives one the maximum flexibility if one enjoys that. I used my USB-6259 as a dynamic signal analyser, low frequency frequency response/impedance analyser, peak counter/MCA when playing with radioactivity detectors,calibrator for some old meters and a voltage source for driving the gate when doing IV mapping with a Keithley 238, all with low effort python scripting.