Hello.
I have a group of people that are putting together a switchbox for controlling a large amount of relays. We have typically used NI-6353 DAQs to activate a MOSFET which would then activate a relay inside the switchbox for each channel, but have recently switched over to a cDAQ. We bought in an NI-9477 module thinking that it would do a similar job as the DO ports on the 6353, but realized very quickly that the 9477 is not meant for this purpose, and is more similar to the switchbox itself.
As we need to use the switchbox so that we have a way of either manually activating a channel, or remotely activating a channel, it seems that we need to get a different card. I understand that the 9477 could be hooked up to an external 5v power supply, and therefor be used as a workaround, but my engineers only want 24v in the area, since they will be running everything through a 24v battery.
So, my question is which cDAQ module would be best for what we need? We need at least 16 channels, and since it is driving a MOSFET rather than the relay directly, we only need 3-5v, with essentially no current. I was looking into a 9403, but must admit that I am not well enough versed to make the call.
Thank you in advance.