Firefly Introduction

HGL Dynamics is pleased to present its Firefly ultra-portable high-performance data acquisition system.

Firefly provides a fully featured data acquisition, monitoring, and analysis system in a very compact format, measuring only 10.5" (27 cm) x 9" (23 cm) x 1.5" (3.8 cm) and weighing only 2.5 kg.

Firefly is presented in a durable milled aluminium chassis with rounded edges for comfortable in-hand use. The unit can be supplied with a rubber 'bumper' for added protection when being carried. Additionally the unit includes VESA mounting points on the rear of the case allowing mounting on monitor arms and stands if required.

 

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Inside the chassis the Firefly includes:

  • A Dragonfly8 8-channel acquisition card with the standard feature set including signal conditioning mounting positions. This allows the Firefly to be upgraded with any of the Dragonfly range of signal conditioning modules.
  • A Pico-ITX Intel Dual Core Atom CPU card running Windows 7 or later. This allows the Firefly to run all current HGL software applications and additionally allows users to access any Windows based software such as Microsoft Office.
  • A 128 or 256 GB Solid State Disk (SSD) which allows 11 or 22 hours of continuous data storage at the maximum 80 kHz bandwidth on all 8 channels (44 or 88 hours of storage at 20 kHz bandwidth on all 8 channels).
  • A 4 Ah Lithium Ion battery which provides enough power to operate the Firefly for between 2 and 4 hours depending on operation. The battery is automatically charged when the 12 V external power is applied and can charge during operation when powered by the external 12 V supply. 

Options

Firefly can be provided with the following options:

  • GPS module - provides precise time synchronisation using the GPS time standard. This feature can be used to synchronise multiple Firefly units together if required. The GPS module also provides positional information if required for use within the acquisition meta-data.
  • GPRS/3G module - provides a means of transmitting processed data back to base from a remote site. It also provides the ability to remote control any aspect of the Firefly's operation from a remote site.
  • WiFi module - provides a wireless Ethernet capability to allow wireless data transfer / remote control of one or more Firefly units.
  • Signal Conditioning - supports the full range of Dragonfly Signal Conditioning plug-in cards. For more details please visit the Dragonfly Signal Conditioning pages.

Software

Firefly is compatible with all of the HGL Dynamics software range. The unit is supplied with the Hawk acquisition suite and the Hawkeye monitoring suite as standard.

Software modules available include: