LabView Program Explanation

During the summer of 2012, Ben Willis wrote a LabView program that would communicate with a NetBooter and ultimately control a heater and water pump. LabView also plots the temperature of water being heated, and plots the changing temperatures on a graph on the front panel. Before Ben left, he wrote a [[media:Final_Report.pdf|final report]] of his work on the program and in the lab in general. I have added a little to Ben's work, mostly housekeeping; deleting some non functioning commands, adding the equation to represent temperature based on voltage, adding an equation for a thermocouple, and connecting with the DAQ. I also plan to make a differential op-amp to allow the DAQ to read the inputs given by the thermocouple. In this way, we will be able to use a thermistor and two thermocouples to control the water temperature in both the straightening pipe and the bending tank.

I had found a lab manual from the University of Minnesota that gave step by step instructions for taking and recording temperature measurements using a thermistor, a DAQ, and LabView. After making the circuit and updating the LabView program it seems to be working within expected error.

[[media:LabViewThermistor.pdf|The Lab Manual]]