v4 setting up

[zahra rezaei]

Hello,

I am very new to Miniscope and would appreciate it if you could help me with some basic questions.

We have recently bought a miniscope v4 from Open Ephys and although it is fully assembled, I still have difficulty with getting it work.

1) To connect the coaxial cable to the miniscope body, should I solder it?

2) For the base plate, how should I screw it to the miniscope body? What is the base plate cap for?

3) To program the miniscope DAQ box, according to the github page, K1-K3 jumpers should be in the boot mode; however I cannot find these jumpers on my DAQ box. 

4) As the next step of programming DAQ, I am supposed to open Cypress Control Center and upload firmware image onto the EEPROM memory on the DAQ. Although I have installed  EZ-USB FX3 SDK 1.3.4 for Windows , I have no idea how to open  Cypress Control Center.

5) If my experiment does not involve many movements in open field which results in cable twisting, can I use the miniscope without using a commutator?

That would be great if you could help me with any of these questions.

[Daniel Aharoni]

Hi and welcome!

1) You have 2 options here: You can use a Hirose U.FL connector on both the V4 PCB and one edge of the coax cable to connect the two. Or you can remove the U/FL connector on the V4 PCB and directly solder the coax cable to the exposed pads on the PCB. I recommend using the U.FL connectors as it makes it easy to swap out cables if your animal bites through one. It also removes the need to mess around with soldering on the V4 PCB which can be a bit tricky and delicate.

2) The baseplate should come with a conical tipped set-screw. You use this to rigidly mount the Miniscope to the baseplate. There is a small circular indent on the bottom side of the V4 Miniscope which the conical tip of the set screw will register into. The cap is used to protect your cranial window or GRIN lens implant while the Miniscope is not mounted.

3) If you ordered your DAQ from OEPS it should already come programmed. If you need to reprogram the DAQ you should be able to follow the instructions here http://miniscope.org/index.php/System_Assembly and here http://miniscope.org/index.php/Software_and_Firmware_Setup. The only difference is you will be using the 256KB version of the DAQ firmware .img file and you should use the newest version of the Miniscope Software.

4)The Cypress SDK comes with the Cypress Control Center. You likely can find it in your Windows Start Menu or just do a search in windows for it. But again, if you ordered your DAQ through OEPS you shouldn't need to reprogram it.

5) Yes. And many researchers use the Miniscope without a commutator in freely moving experiments as well. 

[zahra rezaei]

Thank you so much Daniel for the reply. It really helped.

Regarding my first question, it seems that my coaxial cable has a Hirose U.FL connector (female, U.FL-PR-SMT) and the V4 PCB has a connector U.FL-R-SMT (male). However, I was wondering if I should push these two parts very hard to make the connection. I did not push very hard because I was afraid to break the connection.

And to remove the cap from the base plate, there is no screwdriver provided in the package. Should I order it separately?

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[Daniel Aharoni]

Yes, the U.FL connectors should require a bit more force than you would expect to snap them together. You should hear a click when they snap together and the connection should feel very rigid without any wobble.

I think the set screw supplied with the cap/baseplate uses as pretty standard hex wrench. You can likely contact OEPS to find out the exact size needed.

[Johannes Hahn]

I got a .9 mm Hex wrench for the baseplate which works fine.