Analog signal duty cycle incorrect

Question

I am using an NI PCIe 6535 board to send digital timing signals to a custom PCB.
The signals are digital square wave signals with various duty cycles and phase shifts.
I also need to send a 12 bit ramp signal to the board.
I am having issues with the frequency.
I need the timing signals to run at 833.33333 khz.
I need the lsb of the ramp to run at 416.666666khz.
To create the timing signals I am using "Create Analog signal", so that I can set up the square wave with the appropriate phase shift and duty cycle.
Then I conver from analog to digital.
I am using a DAQmx generate to output the signal to the PCB. I have noticed that the DAQmx gen frequency directly controls the ramps frequency.
However for the digital timing signals there is some scaling factor. The frequency of the digital timing signals can be set in the timing signals them selves. The sample rate in the analog signal also effects the frequency.
To get the frequencies that I need. I had to set the"create analog signal" sample rate at 2.778G S/s, the "create analog signal" frequency to 1.2889GHZ, and the DAQmx generate frequency to 1.66666 MHZ. At those numbers, I get the timing signals to output at 833.333KHZ and the second bit of the ramp at 416.6666HZ (for the ramp I upped it to 13 bit and I don't use bit 0, as it outputs at 833KHZ).
However at these settings all of my timing signals have the same phase, and the same duty cycle, even though I have them set differently.
Can someone please help? I think the issue is that I have the sample rate and frequency of the "create analog signal" block set too high, but if I set them lower my signals will not be at the right frequency.
Attachments:
timing signal 1.JPG ‏44 KB
timing signal 2.JPG ‏47 KB
daqmx gen.JPG ‏55 KB

Answer 1

Hi David,
We found that there seems to be a weird divider between the sampling rate of the analog signal module, the analog signal sample rate, and the f daqmx gen.
After various tests we made a chart of what we observed. Fsignal and sample rate are values set in the "create analog signal" module, Fdaqmxgen is set in the "DAQmx generate" module. We used a "create anaolg signal" module to create the square wave, then convert analog to digital convert the square wave to digital.
We have "repeated signal" and "N periods" checked.
Fsignal
Fdaqmxgen
Sample rate
Frequency   measured on the scope
1GHZ
10MHZ
100G s/s
100KHz
100MHZ
10MHZ
100G s/s
10KHZ
1GHZ
1MHZ
100G s/s
10KHZ
10GHZ
10MHZ
100G s/s
1MHZ
100GHZ
10MHZ
100G s/s
10MHZ
100GHZ
10MHZ
100G s/s
5MHZ
The equation we came up with is Feff = (Fsginal/FDaqmxgen)*1000.
To meaure the frequencies were using an HP 54600A oscilloscope, and probing standoff pins on our custom pcb.
We have several versions of the project, attached is the latest one.
Kyle,
How do I set the compression to false?
The picture below looks like labview? We are using signal express.
I can't change the frequency on the DAQ mx gen because I need the ramp to run at a set frequency.
There is a divider between the daqmx gen and the f signal. I have to set the Fsginal in the GHZ to get it to out at the right frequency. The equation we came up with is Feff = (Fsginal/FDaqmxgen)*1000.
Thanks,
Devin