Universal data recording system

A condition monitoring system for scanning terminal voltage levels on a plurality of terminals to detect changes in the voltage level at each of the terminals, comprising in combination:

• a central controller for repetitively generating at intervals the identifying address of the terminals to establish a scanning order,
• the identifying address is made up of a bit pattern having terminal group identifying bits, selector group identifying bits and a terminal identifying bit,
• a group/selector decoder responsive to the terminal group identifying bits and the selector group identifying bits and providing an intermediate gate control voltage,
• a plurality of control gates responsive to the intermediate gate control voltage and the terminal identifying bit to generate gate control voltages identifying a terminal,
• a plurality of scanner switches at least equal in number to the plurality of terminals, said switches connected to the terminals on a one-to-one basis,
• means connecting a reference voltage to each of said switches for biasing the conducting mode of each switch above the reference voltage applied thereto,
• means responsive to the gate control voltages for enabling at least one of said scanner switches to be switched into a conducting mode,
• means connected to each of said switches for applying a terminal voltage thereto as a switching voltage to cause an enabled switch to change to the conducting mode in response to a switching voltage above an applied reference voltage, and
• detector means responsive to the voltage level at each of the closed switches to generate a terminal status signal.

A condition monitoring system for scanning a voltage level on a plurality of terminals each having an identifying address to detect changes in the voltage level of each of the terminals, comprising in combination:

• a central controller for repetitively generating at intervals the identifying address of the terminals to establish a scanning order,
• means for decoding the generated identifying address of the terminals into gate control voltages,
• a plurality of scanner switches at least equal in number to the plurality of terminals, said switches connected to the terminals on a one-to-one basis,
• means connecting a reference voltage to each of said switches for biasing the conducting mode of each switch above the reference voltage applied thereto,
• means responsive to the gate control voltages for enabling at least one of said scanner switches to be switched into the conducting mode,
• means connected to each of said switches for applying a terminal voltage thereto as a switching voltage to cause an enabled switch to change into the conducting mode in response to a switching voltage above an applied reference voltage, and
• detector means responsive to a voltage level at each of the closed switches, and including means for generating a terminal status code from each voltage level.