Spider-80SG: General Data Acquisition with Strain Gauge

The Spider-80SG is a high-precision, general-purpose data acquisition device featuring strain gauge measurement. This device can be used in a variety of physical and measurement tests. The Spider-80SG can acquire data from a strain gauge or a wide range of measurement quantities. A variety of general-purpose and strain-gauge-based sensors are supported. The Spider-80SG is built on the proven, outstanding performance and reliability of Crystal Instruments’ DSP-based hardware platform. It features the same form factor as other Spider-80X front-ends from Crystal Instruments and can be configured into one measurement system with excellent compatibility and scalability. This gives the Spider-80SG capabilities to reliably acquire data from multiple sensors and for multiple measurement quantities simultaneously.

The Spider-80SG front-end connects to the network switch of a PC using an Ethernet connection. When used with a strain gauge, it measures the strain based on arriving signals, measuring the changes in resistance when the strain gauge is stretched or compressed. It can also be used to measure Force, Torque, Pressure, Acceleration, Velocity and Displacement. The Spider-80SG can be configured to output an excitation voltage to power up the sensors and measure a range of measurement quantities. Pluggable front-ends provide the system with maximum flexibility of analogue channel configuration, making it ideal for a range of measurement tests under various circumstances. The modular design allows configurations with 8 input channels of isolated analogue inputs and one analogue output.

With Crystal Instruments’ unique Ethernet-based time synchronisation technology, multiple Spider-80SG front-ends can be chained together to construct a system with a higher number of input channels. High channel systems scale up to 512 channels.

Each Spider-80SG front-end has its own mass storage media that houses the operating software and stores measurement data. This truly distributed system guarantees data recording at full speed without being subject to network speed limitations.

Product Specifications

Input Channels
8 channels per front-end, expandable to 512 channels in a system

Connector Type
7-pin LEMO

Input Range
±5 mV, ±10 mV, ±50 mV, ±100 mV, ±10 V

Sampling Rate Per Channel
0.48 Hz to 256 kHz, with 58 stages

Shunt Calibration
Internal 100 K Ω (0.1%, 25ppm/c

Excitation Sense
Local and remote sensing

Zero Suppression/Auto Balancing/Offset Nulling

Strain Functions
Quarter-120, Quarter-350, Half bridge, Full bridge

Bridge Completion
120 Ω: 0.05%, 5ppm/c
350 Ω: 0.05%, 5ppm/c
Back Half resistor: 10 K/10 K, 0.1% (or 0.02%), 2 ppm/c

Excitation Voltage
±2.5 V, ±5 V, ±10 V
Current: 30 mA max/channel