Effective Realtime Data Processing using LabJack T-Series DAQs*

The ability to accurately collect and computationally process data from sensors in real time is crucial to many scientific experiments. This generally leads to cost-ineffective solutions from well-known manufacturers, usually tied to proprietary analysis software, or oft-crude home-built alternatives. In light of this issue, we have created an open-source python API for the LabJack T-series of DAQs as a powerful, cost-effective alternative that is extensible and accessible to users with varying backgrounds in programming. We demonstrate the efficacy of this interface in the context of gathering and processing data from a quadrant-cell photodiode used to monitor a torsion pendulum in real time, as well as highlighting a few notable advantages found processing data with the LabJack.