Engineers now can integrate up to 18 PXI/CompactPCI modules into a compact, rack-mountable, tightly synchronized measurement and automation system with National Instruments PXI-1006 3U chassis.

The PXI-1006 incorporates an 18-slot PXI backplane, a removeable 600 W power supply, and three 130 CFM fans. The chassis has an advanced cooling design, extended star trigger bus, and an autosensing 10 MHz clock to ensure synchronization among all peripheral slots.

"The PXI-1006 is an ideal platform for manufacturing test, data acquisition, and large switching applications," said Brad Smith, NI PXI Product Manager. "Engineers can use the chassis to take full advantage of PXI instrumentation to reduce test time and time-to-market while improving their test flexibility."

With two PXI-to-PXI bridges, the PXI-1006 backplane transparently extends both the PXI bus and the timing and triggering signals to all 18-slots while maintaining the full 132 Mbytes/s bandwidth defined by the PXI specification.

NI designed the PXI-1006 with airflow deflectors and venting to ensure that each of the 18 slots in the chassis receives more uniform airflow. This reduces the operating temperature, prolongs system life, and increases the mean-time-between-failure (MTBF).