Hello,
I am fairly new to picking National Instruments products and I am a bit confused about the hardware I need. The project I am working on requires 81 PC fans to be independently controlled with PWM using the clock on board the chassis (not software based timing). I will be using a cDAQ-9174, cDAQ-9178, or cDAQ-9179, depending on how many modules I need. From my understanding, I will require modules that can access the chassis' on-board counters. According to the link below, the most channels I can get on 1 module with access to the on-board counters is 8.
http://www.ni.com/product-documentation/54453/en/#toc2
My main questions are;
1. Is it true that I need modules with access to the on-board counters to produce the PWM signals for the fans? If not, can I use a simple C series Digital Module like the NI 9476?
2. Will I need to use a module that has 5V/TTL outputs to control PC fans?
Thanks in advance for any input.