7½-digitdigital multimeter

Jon Lawson

NI has announced the NI PXIe-4081 7½-digit high-performance Digit Digital Multimeter (DMM) and 1.8 MS/s isolated digitiser. The NI PXIe-4081 is the first PXI Express DMM available. It offers engineers the flexibility, resolution and isolation needed to tackle challenging applications that require smarter test systems in industries ranging from consumer electronics to aerospace and defence.

The NI PXIe-4081 is the industry’s most accurate 7½-digit DMM, with an industry-leading 15 ppm accuracy for DC voltage measurements up to two years after calibration. It is capable of voltage measurements from nanovolts to one kilovolt and resistance measurements from microohms to gigaohms.

A solid-state current shunt configuration offers eight DC current ranges from 1 µA to 3 A and six AC rms current ranges from 100 µA to 3 A. The DMM occupies a single 3U PXI slot and provides excellent channel density for high-channel-count systems, delivering 17 DMM channels in a single PXI chassis occupying 4U of rack space.

For high-throughput applications, the isolated digitiser mode can acquire DC-coupled waveforms in all voltage and current ranges with a 1.8 MS/s maximum sample rate. By changing the digitiser sampling rate, engineers can vary the resolution of the digitiser from 10 to 23 bits for the perfect combination of speed and accuracy.

Engineers can use an interactive soft front panel for basic measurements and debugging automated applications, which delivers all the ease-of-use expected from a traditional instrument. The driver software includes a best-in-class programming interface that works with a variety of development environments, such as C, Microsoft .NET and LabVIEW. The driver also features help files, documentation and 28 ready-to-run example programs to assist in test code development.