FED not dispensing the second pellet

[Yanan Wu]

We have a FED that's not dispensing the second pellet (and onward) while the stopwatch, poke response, motor function, sensor and SD card, are all fine.

For any program I chose, the first pellet is always dispensed perfectly fine (so no issue with motor), then the timeout (5s for FF) ends yet not a second pellet would drop. I tried to manually put a pellet in-between the sensors but it won't stop the stopwatch on the screen. The timing on the screen still keeps updating and the poke responses can be logged normally.

I have tried to insert a new SD card but the issue persists. Any other options? Thanks a lot!

[Matt Gaidica]

If the pellet retrieval timer is not stopping when a pellet is taken, it's likely the pellet sensor itself. It sounds like that is not functioning at all? We see this often with older FEDs where there is debris in the sensor housing, or in rare cases, the sensor module has gone bad. For cleaning, see here: https://neurotechhub.wustl.edu/an-unofficial-fed-cleaning-protocol/

Go blue!

[Yanan Wu]

Cleaning the sensors with compressed air solved the problem! :)