LArVa is a powerful driver that turns an Arduino microcontroller and a Windows computer into a super-low cost data acquisition system. This guide walks through the download and installatino of LArVa so you can start gathering data. The installation includes an executable that will run on Windows and examples files that you can edit using Labview 2010 or higher to change and customize the functionality of the LArVa Simple Graph application.
After getting LArvA installed, there are many more applications that LArVa can do, typically starting with gathering a simple voltage.
The world is full of sensors, actuators and other devices that can be read, controlled and interfaced. Examples include sensors, such as a temperature sensor that costs less than a dollar to massive and expensive microscope or telescope systems. Similarly, actuators can be simple, cheap solenoid valves or large, complex motion systems.
Many of these systems, independent of cost and complexity, interface to the world via reading and writing voltages. Data acquisition allows us to interface those devices to our computers so we can get the data and control the devices.
LArVa is a free driver that turns an under $30 Arduino microcontroller into an ultra-low cost data acquisition system. While spending hundreds, thousands or more dollars on data acquisition system is necessary in some cases, inexpensive data acquisition can do a lot for a very little… and with more and more amazing and inexpensive sensors and actuators available every day, there are unending possibilities.
One of the most universal needs in the lab is to measure temperature. This could be the temperature of a tightly controlled experiment, the temperature of a portion of a structure under thermal feedback or simply the air temperature in the room.
Most data acquisition hardware costs hundreds of dollars or more and offers much more bandwidth and resolution than a typical temperature measurement requires. This application note shows how to use a resistive temperature device (costing less than $3), an Arduino Uno (costing less than $30) and the LArVa driver (free) to measure temperature over a wide variety of ranges.
LArVa is a free driver that turns an under $30 Arduino microcontroller into an ultra-low cost data acquisition system. While spending hundreds, thousands or more dollars on data acquisition system is necessary in some cases, inexpensive data acquisition can do a lot for very little cost… and with more and more amazing and inexpensive sensors and actuators available every day, there are vast possibilities.
