PCI Express I/O card for high-voltage protection

Optocouplers on the card are rated for 2,500V isolation and help protect systems in industrial environments against high voltages or currents caused by line surges or ground loops. The solid state outputs are capable of switching from 5-34DC at 2A continuous.

The PCIe-IDIO-24 offers change of state detection (COS) on all inputs (including TTL lines), which can generate an interrupt whenever one or more of the digital inputs changes state. This eliminates the need for constant polling and reduces processor overhead. A digital change of state can be configured to detect rising, falling, or both edges.

The PCIe-IDIO-24 is especially useful in applications where high common-mode external voltages are present. Isolation is required to guard electronics from transient voltage spikes and offers greater common-mode noise rejection in surroundings containing industrial machinery and inductive loads. These applications include factory automation, energy management, industrial ON/OFF control, security systems, manufacturing test, and process monitoring.

I/O is accessed via a 78 pin DB female connector on the mounting bracket of the card. A molded breakout cable is available that divides the 78 pins into two DB37F connectors. Also available is a kit (model STB-37/2 Kit) which includes the cable, two STB-37 screw terminal boards, and a one-foot length of DIN-rail mountable SNAPTRACK to mount the screw terminal boards.

Key features of the PCIe-IDIO-24 include:

• 24 optically isolated, non-polarised digital inputs
• Polarity insensitive AC/DC inputs accept up to 31V DC or AC RMS
• Software configurable filters on inputs for electrically noisy environments
• Can detect input state change and assert interrupt
• 24 optically isolated fully protected FET high-side switch outputs
• Outputs capable of switching from 5-34V DC at 2A
• Optocouplers rated for 2.5kV isolation
• Four optically isolated output groups and two optically isolated input groups
• 8 non-isolated TTL/CMOS I/O lines
• 12-channel I/O, and input or output only versions available

The card is supported for use in most operating systems and includes a free DOS, Linux, and Windows compatible software package. This package contains sample programs and source code in Visual Basic, Delphi, and Visual C++ for Windows. Also provided is a graphical setup program in Windows. Linux support includes installation files and basic samples for programming from user level via an open source kernel driver. Third party support includes a Windows standard DLL interface usable from the most popular application programs, and includes LabVIEW 8.5+ VIs. Embedded OS support includes Windows Xpe, WES7, etc.