Sometimes you even use COTS software and wish there was an appropriate interface for the transducers you routinely use in your work.
Danville Signal designs and manufactures hardware products that address this need.
Now you might be thinking, "What's a high-performance DSP audio company doing in this space?"
Well, it turns out that many of the techniques that make high-performance digital audio products possible are exactly the same as those needed in making excellent sound and vibration test equipment.
In many cases, it is tempting to kludge together a system using sound cards or multichannel digital audio converters to address the needs of a sound and vibration instrument front end. After all, many of these products have excellent S/N and appropriate sample rates.
Sound and Vibration instruments have additional requirements to make them more than just good sound cards:
- Stability of Performance
- Calibration Adjustments
- Extended Low-Frequency Response
- Wide Dynamic Range regardless of transducer sensitivity
- IEPE/CCP biasing TEDS transducer read and write capability
Chip manufacturers don't generally make products specifically for the sound and vibration market, the market is just too small. BUT—and it's a big BUT—the same devices used in the larger audio market are ideal for sound and vibration circuits if you know how to make the necessary adjustments.
Our sound and vibration products have industry-leading signal/noise performance and high sample rate capability since we use the state-of-the-art audio ADCs and DACs. We start with these devices and then add the appropriate circuits to tailor them to the specific needs of a measurement system.
COTS to Full Custom Designs
We have several standard products in our dspInstrument™ line that you can use with your software solution. The most popular is the spDAQ, which is a two-channel USB powered front end for sound and vibration measurements.
Most of the sound and vibration instruments that we make are for specific customers for their exclusive use. You will not see these on our website. We have designed and manufactured products for underwater acoustics, remote monitoring, condenser microphone interfacing, and vibration control.
These products may rely on an external computer and be interfaced via USB or Ethernet (including IoT - PoE support). Others have standalone processing using a DSP or embedded computer.
If you have a sound and vibration measurement requirement, we probably have all the basic building blocks already developed.
Danville manufactures all of our products in our own automated factory in Cannon Falls, Minnesota. This gives us the flexibility of customizing designs as needed and complete control over our manufacturing process.
If you need a technology partner for your S&V application, we would love to start a conversation.
