National Instruments 3.21E+04 Manual De Usuario

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Chapter 5     Calibration
AT-MIO/AI E Series User Manual
5-2
 National Instruments Corporation
This method of calibration is not very accurate because it does not take 
into account the fact that the board measurement and output voltage 
errors can vary with time and temperature.  It is better to self-calibrate 
when the board is installed in the environment in which it will be used.
Self-Calibration
Your AT E Series board can measure and correct for almost all of its 
calibration-related errors without any external signal connections.  
Your National Instruments software provides a self-calibration method 
you can use.  This self-calibration process, which generally takes less 
than a minute, is the preferred method of assuring accuracy in your 
application.  You should initiate self-calibration to ensure that the 
effects of any offset, gain, and linearity drifts, particularly those due to 
warmup, are minimized.
Immediately after self-calibration, the only significant residual 
calibration error could be gain error due to time or temperature drift of 
the onboard voltage reference.  This error is addressed by external 
calibration, which is discussed in the following section.  If you are 
interested primarily in relative measurements, you can ignore a small 
amount of gain error, and self-calibration should be sufficient.
External Calibration
Your AT E Series board has an onboard calibration reference to ensure 
the accuracy of self-calibration.  Its specifications are listed in 
Appendix A, Specifications.  The reference voltage is measured at the 
factory and stored in the EEPROM for subsequent self-calibrations.  
This voltage is stable enough for most applications, but if you are using 
your board at an extreme temperature or if the onboard reference has not 
been measured for a year or more, you may wish to externally calibrate 
your board.  
An external calibration refers to calibrating your board with a known 
external reference rather than relying on the onboard reference.  
Redetermining the value of the onboard reference is part of this process 
and the results can be saved in the EEPROM, so you should not have to 
perform an external calibration very often.  You can externally calibrate 
your board by calling the NI-DAQ calibration function.