National Instruments cRIO-9024 CompactRIO Controller

The cRIO-9024 (Part numbers: 781174-01, 193965E-01L) is a high-performance controller by National Instruments. It can easily be installed on a chassis. The controller features two Ethernet ports; the primary Ethernet port is used to establish an Ethernet network using a CAT-5 or better Ethernet cable. The controller can directly link to a host computer if a network is not available. To prevent data loss, the cable length should be less than 100 meters. The cRIO-9024 has a secondary Ethernet port, which must be configured with a static IP address on a different subnet using NI MAX.

The NI cRIO-9024 runs a power-on self-test (POST). The status LEDs and power LED turn on during POST. The status LED turns off to indicate POST completion. The controller initially boots into safe mode because no software is installed. It attempts to automatically connect to a network using DHCP. If DHCP is unavailable, it links to the network using a link-local IP address. This module is powered by an 800 MHz CPU, and is equipped with 512 MB DRAM. In addition, it has 4 GB of nonvolatile storage memory.

The NI cRIO-9024 is embedded with an RS-232 DTE serial port. This port supports baud rates from 600 bps to 230,400 bps with data bit ranges from 5 to 8. The port flow control options include DTR/DSR, RTS/CTS, XON/XOFF, and none. The NI cRIO-9024 also features a high-speed USB port, with a maximum data rate of 480 Mb/s and a current draw of up to 500 mA.