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PULSE {LatestVersion}
This Readme file includes information on installation, describes new features, and provides hints and tips, troubleshooting guides, and a list of resolved problems.
We are pleased to present PULSETM 20, which includes new PULSE hardware and software plus updates and enhancements to the existing PULSE software:
PULSE LabShop is 32-bit only but can take advantage of the additional RAM on a Windows® 7 or Windows® 8.1 x64 computer. PULSE LabShop can use the additional RAM as the OS can allocate up to approximately 3.3 GB RAM to the process and, for example, enable larger multibuffers to be created.
The following operating systems are supported:
The following versions of Microsoft® Office are supported:
The following versions of Microsoft® SQL Server are supported:
We strongly recommend that you update your PULSE installation to the latest major release to ensure that the latest security updates from Microsoft® are supported by your installation.
Please note:
This will install a 32-bit version of PULSE LabShop and applications. If you already have a PULSE version installed, you must uninstall it first. Uninstallation of the software does not uninstall any auto-installed databases or servers.
Note that with node-locked licenses, the license is automatically installed after software installation. Floating licenses are not automatically installed. See Installing Licenses below for more information.
To install PULSE:
If your license is node-locked to a dongle, the dongle should be disconnected during installation. After installing PULSE Reflex, insert the dongle. The dongle will blink for up to 30 seconds while it is updated. Once updated the dongle should light continuously. See the troubleshooting section if the dongle does not update correctly or stop blinking.
To install PULSE Reflex:
During installation, the Database Engine Installer tool helps you install Microsoft® SQL Server® and set it up for use with PULSE Data Manager (PDM). This is required with PDM. You can use either SQL Server Express or SQL Server Standard edition
If you have SQL Server Standard Edition or SQL Server Express already installed, the tool can simply set these up for use with PDM and/or PULSE Reflex. If your current SQL Server Express is an older version, the tool can upgrade it to the latest supported version.
SQL Server 2012 Express (SP2) is included in the installation. In some cases, however, you may not have the required privileges, or a reboot may be required.
If a reboot is required, you will see the message:
Reboot required
If you do not have the required privileges, you will see a message stating:
Privilege "xxxx" missing.
where xxxx is one of the following:
In these cases, the install user executing the SQL Server installation must be assigned the required user rights before running the installation. If the PC is a member of a domain, you should ask your IT administrator if the required user rights should be defined by group policies, or if you should define the user rights using the Local Group Policy Editor:
Group policies overwrite local policies.
Errors that prevent installation are shown as bullet points with red text. Moving the mouse over the text displays a tool tip with details of the error. The Database Engine Installer detects when the SQL Server service is not running correctly and will try to repair these errors. Click Repair to enable this functionality. When successful, the installer will provide installation setup options as usual. If there are errors in the installation, you can click Show log and send the log file to us so that we can investigate the installer's errors.
Your Host ID can be found on your License Authorization Card. From PULSE 20, the card is included as PDF on the installation USB key. Before PULSE 20, the card was printed and included in your package.
Node-locked licenses are installed automatically after the PULSE software installation. To share installation and use of the software with other PCs, use the dongle (the license must be node-locked to the dongle).
With floating licenses, you will have to follow the instructions in the License Fulfilment Guide (BE 1693) that accompanies your PULSE package to:
All license installation content for floating licenses is on this USB key, including your License Authorization Card. To fulfil the license, you will need your License Authorization Code (on the card) and an Internet connection in order to access http://license.bksv.com/.
If the License Manager in PULSE displays the text:
Please contact your local sales representative to replace this HASP4 Dongle with a HASP-HL dongle
for a Host ID that you wish to use, please do so. There are three reasons for replacing the dongle:
If you have side-by-side installations and remove one of these installations, the remaining installation must be repaired before use (reinstalls do not cause any problems).
To view the latest PULSE installation log file, copy
%ALLUSERSPROFILE%\Application Data\Bruel and Kjaer\PULSE latest installation log.lnk
to the address line of Windows® Explorer and press Enter. The link works for all versions of operating system and is updated during install, uninstall, repair, etc.
If an unexpected dialog appears during installation, disconnect from the Internet and disable your antivirus software's real-time scanner. You should disconnect from the Internet before disabling part of your antivirus software to protect yourself from web-based attacks while the real-time scanning software is disabled. Your antivirus software's options can usually be displayed by clicking on its icon on the task bar.
FLEXlm has been updated to support Windows Server 2008 R2 (x64). Customers using floating licenses should upgrade BKSV.exe, lmgrd.exe and lmtools.exe on their license server to avoid the error from the client software. The files can be found in "Program Files\Common Files\Bruel and Kjaer\FlexLM".
To ensure correct operation of applications making use of 3D graphics, please make sure that you have the latest graphics drivers installed on your computer. Visit the support website of your graphics card manufacturer to download and install drivers.
Please note that while PULSE 18 and 19 used version 4.22 uEye camera drivers, PULSE 20 requires version 4.70. If required, you can download the 32- or 64-bit driver from www.bksv.com.
There are a number of known issues with the installation of PULSE. These have been documented and their respective solutions made available on an Installation Troubleshooting page.
The new LAN-XI Module aimed specifically at high-frequency applications such as transducer calibration and underwater defense applications, and offers a combination of 1 x 204.8kHz input channel with 1 x 204.8kHz generator output channel. The combination of Direct/CCLD, 200V and Charge input on the front panel (UA-2117-011) allows connection to virtually any microphone and accelerometer, including direct connectivity to hydrophones Type 8103/8104/8105/8106. The unique Dyn-X feature eliminates the need for input ranging and avoids overloads in when measuring high energy impacts. See more at Type 3161.
PULSE Sound Power Determination for Earth Moving Machinery Type 7883 is a software application that supports the main earth moving machinery noise emission standards of the International Organization for Standardization (ISO). The software is configured with the requirements for ISO 6393, 6394, 6395 and 6396 to guide you through measurement setup, measurement runs and report generation.
For the determination and declaration of:
PULSE Noise Emission Outdoor Machinery, Directive 2000 Type 7885 supports measurements and the reporting necessary to equip outdoor machinery with a CE marking, which states the guaranteed sound power level, and to produce an EC Declaration of Conformity. The measurements are made in accordance with the free-field methods described in ISO 3744 and 3746
PULSE Array Acoustics, Flyover Moving Source Beamforming BZ-5940 is an option for PULSE Array Acoustics Beamforming Type 8608, which is one of a suite of systems developed for noise source identification (NSI) using measurement arrays. BZ-5940 provides a high-resolution acoustic map of sound sources using one simple measurement of an aeroplane as it flies over a ground-based array of microphones by differentiating sound levels based on the direction from which they originate.
PULSE Array Acoustics, Proximal Holography BZ-5963 is conformal noise-mapping software using the ESM algorithm. BZ-5963 is an option for PULSE Array Acoustics, Acoustic Holography Type 8607.
PULSE Array Acoustics, External Plug-in Manager BZ-5652 builds upon the flexibility and expandability of Brüel & Kjær's PULSE system. It is an optional component of noise source identification (NSI) systems Spherical Beamforming Type 8606, Acoustic Holography Type 8607 and Beamforming Type 8608.
TEDS reading can now be disabled in PULSE Options. This will speed up the activation of a PULSE LabShop measurement. It also allows you to set up channels manually without overwriting the transducer information when reading TEDS.
PULSE LabShop supports the use of LAN-XI differential charge front panels. Differential charge transducers like Types 8315, 8324, 8324-100 and 8347-C are now fully supported in the transducer database, commonly shared by PULSE LabShop, PULSE Time Data Recorder and PULSE Reflex.
Some improvements have been made to the GCX Modern Display:
These two packages have received improved functionality and a number of bugs fixes:
PULSE LabShop's Bridge to MATLAB now works with 64-bit MATLAB if PULSE Reflex 64-bit is installed.
A new option has been added to Tools > Options > Recording. For recordings in PTI format "Begin Recording Filename with Folder Name" changes the file name for files in PTI format from
<Recordername>_<tracknumber>.pti
to
<FolderName>_<Recordername>_<tracknumber>.pti
This is useful of you want to copy recording files from multiple folders/tracks to a single folder for archiving or transfer to another application.
The Exclude Areas functionality for beamforming calculations has been improved. The ability to suppress unwanted areas has been increased from 6dB to 10dB.
The PULSE Normal Incidence Tube Transmission Loss application, Type 7758, now has added support for testing with conical adaptors. This makes it much easier and most cost effective to measure transmission loss performance of exhaust and intake system components. You no longer need to use customized tubes to properly fit the muffler inlet diameter or do additional post-processing to account for the adaptor's effects in the transmission loss calculations. Instead you can use the standard Type 4206-T transmission loss tube, only requiring a custom conical adaptor to fit to the test object and the tube.
Also new in this release:
We have improved the stability of PDM used with Windows® 64-bit operating systems:
New features have been added to Type 7793:
With Multi-vehicle Pass-by, several vehicles can be tested on the track at the same time since the ground station broadcasts the data and each vehicle picks up the relevant ground station data after each test run and merges them with the in-vehicle data. Data are tagged and synchronized using the GPS sync support built into the LAN-XI C-frame.
New and key features in PULSE 20:
New features in PULSE 20 include:
New in PULSE 20:
Windows® allows you to increase the size of user interface elements (text and other items) to make it easier to read items on the screen. This is not supported by PULSE. For Windows® 7 or 8, open the Display control panel and select Smaller - 100%.
Open the Catalyst Control Center by right-clicking on your desktop. Then select Crossfire and uncheck Enable CrossFire.
The LED blinking might be caused by the firmware upgrade that is automatically performed by the driver when you plug the key in the first time.
If, after 20 to 30 seconds, the dongle doesn't stop blinking, then there is a problem with the dongle's firmware update. To fix the problem:
If that doesn't help you can:
Some computers using Intel Hyper Threading (HT) technology might feature lower than expected performance. This may be caused by the overhead induced by the virtualization involved in HT and can be solved by disabling this feature; usually in the computer BIOS.
The problem is with VBA when automating Microsoft® Office applications and can be introduced after upgrading to a newer Office version or through a Windows® security update. Affected applications, such as PULSE Balancing Consultant and Sound Power, that use VBA to generate reports will fail to do so. To correct the problem, we suggest that you follow the instructions given here: MS08-070: Vulnerabilities in Visual Basic 6.0 Runtime Extended Files (ActiveX Controls) could allow remote code execution
If you are using Office Visual Basic for Applications, you may also need to delete the cached versions of the control type libraries. To do this, search your hard drive for ".exd," and delete all the .exd files. The .exd files will be re-created automatically using the new controls the next time that you use VBA.
A computer security program, like F-Secure®, Norton® AntiVirus or Symantec® Endpoint Protection, may report a malicious program attack while PULSE is running. The computer security program is interpreting PULSE's attempts to access system parameters as malicious activity. The computer security program should be configured to ignore these attempts. This is usually achieved by adding the specific PULSE application program to the security program's trusted programs list, or by clicking the Always allow checkbox in the malicious activity report.
Some security programs can interrupt the normal operation of PULSE, causing an unexpected HALT. The security program can, in some cases, even take charge of your computer's CPU process priority, interrupting the running of a PULSE measurement. We recommend to first try the above-mentioned solution or stopping the security program. If nothing else works, you may have to uninstall the security program completely.
Anti-virus programs with built-in firewall functionality that scan network packages may cause performance problems affecting network throughput and latency. If the network scan program is required, you may want to detach the PC from the network while running PULSE and use only standard Windows® protection.
In the event of communication error with the front-end, ensure that the netcard in the PC is set to "100 Mbps Full Duplex" instead of "Auto Negotiate" (Link Speed under Advanced Properties).
If this does not solve the problem, try rolling back the driver to an earlier version.
Before making any recordings with a new SD card, it is strongly recommended that you format the SD card using the SD Formatter application provided by the SD Association.
Cards formatted in other devices, including Windows PCs, may not perform well enough to be used with NOTAR, and data loss may occur as a result. NOTAR will indicate this by aborting the recording and displaying Slow SD card and/or Error 402 under Status on the Recorder control page.
When using LAN-XI front panel UA-2105, UA-2119, or UA-2120 for Charge or Diff. Charge measurement, 'External Amplifier' in the Transducer property page should be set to 1 @ 1 nF (or equivalently: 1mV/pC).
LabShop has no functioning GUI support for Bridge mode (Bridge Module Type 3057). Bridge mode settings are only accessible for automation clients such as DAq-H.
Certain Japanese characters (ｵｯｹｨｩｽ) might not be treated correctly in Signal Names.
Depending on access rights (no full administrator), CAN BOX installation fails to install in the right locations.
Workaround:
With Windows® 7, 32-bit:
With Windows® 7, 64-bit:
When installing a new PULSE version, new firmware might have been installed for the CAN BOX. This firmware has to be loaded into the CAN BOX. Open the CANbox configuration by double-clicking on the CANbox icon in the control panel. If new firmware is available, this will be shown as a tickmark on the General tab.
When changing the transducer on an input in the configuration organiser, the unit might change to V. To avoid this problem you can either change the transducer in the Hardware Table or change the transducer in the Configuration Organiser by removing the current transducer and adding the new transducer.
The PULSE LabShop recorder misses first part of recording when started with signal trigger on 30+ channel systems
Symptom: When using a signal trigger to start a recording with the recorder, some data is missing at the beginning of the recording. This has only been seen on systems with more than 30 channels, but could happen on lower channel systems too.
Solution: The channel used for the signal trigger should be the lowest possible channel according to the Harwdare Setup table or Configuration Organiser.
On some systems and project configurations, an overrun (CPB) or failed overlap (FFT) might occur when analysing data recordings at maximum speed.
To check for these failures you can look in different places:
When using Acoustic Test Consultant and Array Acoustic suite with AMD Radeon display adapters, the program will not close down if you are using the latest driver from July 2015. Please uninstall the driver and go back to the one from 2013.
The maximum track length for recording is 100,000 seconds.
Data recordings with GPS synchronization require that the recordings are made as PTI files (not DAT/REC).
It is possible to start the PULSE Front-end Setup from inside Time Data Recorder. However, you are limited to the type of hardware you can switch between. So when using IDAe frames, you can only change to another IDAe configuration, and when using LAN-XI modules, you can only change to another LAN-XI configuration.
When reporting in Word 2013, manipulating PULSE Data Manager tables may cause Word to crash.
Manually zooming (Alt + Ctrl + Shift + Left Mouse + Move down) on result maps may cause data points, mesh lines and sound power areas to disappear from the maps.
Workaround: Zoom by right-clicking in the map, selecting Decoration and using the Zoom slider.
While setting up or performing a paired comparison or semantic differential session in Psychoacoustic Test Bench BZ-5301, the buttons for playing the ".wav" files in the playlist may be greyed out.To fix, open the playlist file manually using Jury Test, found in Sound Quality Type 7698's Tools menu, and perform the playback from there.The name and location of the playlist file are found in the Perform Session dialog.
When using Windows® generic sound card driver the default settings of the volume for USB Sound Card ZE-0948 are insufficient for the application. As a consequence the VoIP Interface software is unable to provide the performance as specified, even though the information provided via the user interface would indicate that everything is working according to specifications.
Over the years of PULSE, we have added many different applications, templates and tools to the shortcut menu. Unfortunately, the layout of the Windows® 8 Metro GUI displays all shortcuts simultaneously, making it very difficult to find the correct shortcut. To help fight this problem we have taken the following actions:
For Windows 8, we have a shortcut to an Explorer with the old Start Menu, making it easy for customers to re-find their shortcuts as in Windows XP and Windows 7 if this is preferred.
This applies to 64-bit Windows 7 (SP1) operating systems.
Occasionally, a PULSE project with large multibuffers that was created with an earlier version of PULSE cannot be opened. This can occur for projects with large memory usage because of a problem with address-conversion routines for 32-bit applications running on 64-bit operating systems.
Further details and a Microsoft® hotfix for the problem can be found by going to http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2588507.
When using a USB License Dongle on a PC that is connected to via Remote Desktop Connection, the Dongle will not be recognised by PULSE. This only applies to Remote PCs running Windows 7. To resolve this problem you should use a license locked to your PC. To rehost your license, please contact your local support representative.
Using remote control software like Radmin (http://www.radmin.com/) can in many cases be a good solution to this problem.
Files saved in some folders, like the "Program Files" folder, may disappear. As a security precaution, Windows® 7 does not allow files to be saved under some folders. Even when the save seems to be completed, the file does not exist. Save the document to another folder.
| Application | Change Number | Version | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
| PULSE Licenses | PD-325 | {LatestVersion} | Licenses are now only looked up in the license folder, and the environment variables LM_LICENSE_FILE and BKSV_LICENSE_FILE are no longer used. Cached license locations are also no longer used. |
| PULSE LabShop, GCX | LAB-4306 | {LatestVersion} | Resolved issue with behaviour of main cursor in FFT waterfall plots. |
| PULSE LabShop | LAB-3737 | {LatestVersion} | Resolved issue where in some circumstances a stop of the SSR Analyzer did not reset the detector, meaning that the time for the first measurement in the next sweep was longer and an incorrect value was measured for the first measurement. |
| Array Acoustics Suite | AAS-2657 | 19.0.0.161 | Resolved issue with distortion. |
| Array Acoustics Suite | AAS-2782 | 19.0.0.161 | When showing pressure results from Type 2270 or Measurement Partner Suite BZ-5503 in PULSE mapping, interpolation is now correct. |
| PULSE Mapping | AAS-2704 | 19.0.0.160 | When showing pressure results from Type 2270 or Measurement Partner Suite in PULSE mapping, readouts are now correct. |
| PULSE Time Data Recorder | PLT-4801 | 19.0.0.160 | Fixed error where a slow sample rate (less than 2k) caused PULSE Time Data Recorder to crash for IDAe front ends with aux. channels. |
| PULSE LabShop | LAB-4200 | 19.0.0.160 | Resolved issue where incorrect initialization caused the track number for recordings to be reset to 1 when a new task was chosen in the Task Organiser. |
| PULSE LabShop | LAB-4170 | 19.0.0.160 | Resolved issue where, if the recording file path contained ' (apostrophy) or & (ampersand), PULSE Labshop and PULSE Reflex could not open the file for analysis, since a 'sanity check' of the file information failed, although the file itself was OK. |
| PULSE LabShop | LAB-4076 | 19.0.0.160 | Resolved overrun in Time Edit View caused by CAN data. |
| PULSE LabShop | LAB-3878 | 19.0.0.160 | Resolved problem with CAN data in multibuffer causing drop-outs. |
| PULSE LabShop, GCX | LAB-4188 | 19.0.0.156 | Resolved problem with GCX read-out in the case of deleted functions. |
| Automotive Test Manager | ATM-75 | 19.0.0.156 | Resolved issue of the display (in PULSE Data Manager) of data stored in database by ATM Slice Extractor. |
| Automotive Test Manager | ATM-74 | 19.0.0.156 | Fixed defect with the Get data from DB button in ATM Slice Extractor . |
| Array Acoustics Suite | AAS-2538 | 19.0.0.156 | Resolved issue of ATC storing the correct gain settings in the database when the input range is changed while an analyzer is active. |
| Array Acoustics Suite | AAS-2529 | 19.0.0.156 | Fixed NSI Array Patch measurement template to prevent crash after stopping channel detection. |
| Array Acoustics Suite | AAS-2478 | 19.0.0.156 | Fixed Center Offset parameter in 3D Creator option in the Array Patch measurement template so that the entered value is saved. |
| Array Acoustics Suite | AAS-2439 | 19.0.0.156 | The Value Pack workbook loader now shows the available workbooks correctly. |
| Array Acoustics Suite | AAS-2426 | 19.0.0.156 | Corrected the high-pass filter settings in the sound intensity template for sound power measurements. |
| Array Acoustics Suite | AAS-2536 | 19.0.0.156 | TEDS coefficients are now handled correctly. |
| PULSE LabShop | LAB-3866 | 19.0.0.156 | A rare artefact in the first milliseconds of playback has been removed. |
| PULSE LabShop | LAB-4022, LAB-4129 | 19.0.0.156 | TEDS problems related to regional settings have been fixed. |
| PULSE LabShop | LAB-4042 | 19.0.0.128 | Cyclic recording fixed for PTI files. |
| PULSE LabShop | LAB-4059 | 19.0.0.128 | The flag for external weighting on signal level is now set correctly in PTI files. |
| PULSE Data Manager | PDM-144 | 19.0.0.128 | PDMTools can no longer delete a PULSE Reflex database. |
| PULSE LabShop | LAB-3776 | 19.0.0.128 | Resolved issue where changing the scale of an input channel after activation and until re-activation of PULSE LabShop Time Data Recorder Type 7701 (part of 7708) might result in incorrect scaling of PTI recordings. |
| Sound Power | SP-759 | 19.0.0.128 | The Sound Power for ISO 3743-2 is now reported correctly. |
| Sound Power | SP-756 | 19.0.0.128 | Measurement time corrected for vacuum cleaners. |
| Sound Power | SP-699 | 19.0.0.128 | The Directive 2000 template now opens correctly. |
| Sound Power | SP-681 | 19.0.0.128 | Resolved format issues in Free field with emission - discrete tones. |
| Sound Power | SP-679 | 19.0.0.128 | For the reverberation room method, the calibration and instrumentation are now included in the report. |
| Sound Power | SP-672 | 19.0.0.128 | Sound power at reference conditions is now calculated correctly. |
| Sound Power | SP-669 | 19.0.0.128 | In ISO 3744, the dB limit for additional points is now set to equal the number of measurement microphones. |
| Sound Power | SP-637, SP-655 | 19.0.0.128 | Resolved issues concerning implementation of ISO 3744. |
| Sound Power | SP-615 | 19.0.0.128 | Resolved issues concerning reference values in certain displays. |
| Sound Power | SP-604 | 19.0.0.128 | Resolved issue of incorrect values of Lw(A)ref.atm and Lwref.atm in the Excel measurement report. |
| Sound Power | SP-578 | 19.0.0.128 | Measurements in third octaves from 50 Hz to 10 kHz are now allowed. |
| Sound Power | SP-574 | 19.0.0.128 | In ISO3744, one can now select ten additional microphones. |
| Sound Power | SP-556 | 19.0.0.128 | Resolved issues with Tacho setup in EN 60704. |
| Sound Power | SP-554 | 19.0.0.128 | The difference in the Reference report and the DUT report for ISO 3745 has been corrected. |
| Structural Dynamics | SD-1481 | 19.0.0.128 | Resolved issue of square matrices being incorrectly identified with reference and response inverted. The user can now select any DOF as the reference. |
| PULSE LabShop | LAB-3742 | 19.0.0.128 | Fixed issue with display of Level Statistics for more than one channel in the Overall Analyzer. |
| PULSE LabShop | LAB-3722 | 19.0.0.128 | Fixed issue with wrong file length being shown in PULSE Time Edit. |
| LAN-XI Software/Firmware | LXISW-352 | 19.0.0.128 | Resolved performance issues with multi-channel configurations. |
| PULSE LabShop | LAB-3813 | 19.0.0.128 | Resolved issue of PTI files from 7701 sometimes containing incorrect sample frequency when opened in Pulse Time. |
| Array Acoustics Suite | AAS-2190 | 19.0.0.128 | Resolved issue of incorrect time annotations in Array Acoustics post-processing caused by the addition of a tachometer to array measurements. |
| PULSE LabShop, Material Testing | MT-175 | 19.0.0.128 | Material testing is now in complete compliance with section 8.6 of ASTM E1050-12, the estimation of 1/3- and 1/1-octave results. |