I've been using a USB-6210 device to monitor some optical readings on a medical device. These signals all have been the range of 0-5VDC. Now I have been asked to also monitor a 12VDC power supply associated with this circuit to see if power supply fluctuations might be the cause of some problems we are seeing.
I'm using LabWindows/CVI v9 and theDAQmx library functions. The USB-6210 has a maximum range of 10VDC I believe. What would be the best way to scale the 12VDC so that a USB-6210 can monitor it?
I thought of using a resistor voltage divider, but I wonder if that will give a precise enough scaling for us. I've thought of using an opAmp with a gain of 0.5 for scaling, however I am a software engineer and opAmps are somewhat of a mystery for me.
Maybe I need to upgrade from a USB-6210 with something that uses input conditioning modules?
Any thoughts appreciated, and Thanks.
D. Wendelboe