FED3 use with V4 open source miniscope DAQ

[Andrew Hardaway]

Hi Lex and fellow FED users,

We are interested in using FED3 with the version 4 open source miniscope. There is an SMA coax aux input(see attached pic) that should work for this if you have a BNC to SMA adapter. On the FED side we'd like to have a simple program where it is free freeding mode but there is a pellet drop once every 3 min or a set 1 min delay with a random ITI after the 1 minute. We are hoping to be able to cleanly separate neural activity events in combination with single bouts of consumption. So the FED just needs to send a signal to the miniscope DAQ after each pellet retrieval, but it would also be nice in the future to send TTLs during nose poking, lights, tones or other FED-generated events. 

On the miniscope DAQ side there should be a way to set up FED3 as a custom device a la the miniscope itself or cameras or other hardware that are specified in the json user configuration. I'll check with Daniel Aharoni to see if he can help on that end. Either way, I think this would be a cool integration to have and I'm happy to share what I've learned here.

best,

Andrew