Purchasable Plug-and-Play RTFED Units?

[Winston Li]

Hello!

Nice to meet everyone. I am a junior graduate research assistant at USU learning about the FED3 system for a future TRF project my lab is planning. We haven't purchased any units from Labmarker/Open Ephys yet - need to do a bit more research before positing this for my PI.

One question is about the RTFED upgrade, specifically whether there are pre-made units for sale somewhere? If I'm understanding it correctly, the regular RTFED version just needs you to run a software zip file onto the FED3 units and keep them plugged in via usb cable to a windows laptop. If you want true remote monitoring, you'd need a raspberry pi unit for the data to transmit wireless over wifi into a google spreadsheet.

I'm no engineer, and I've heard how easy those raspberry pis are to build but I really just don't think I have time in the lab to be doing a mini engineering course while still trying to get my other stuff (qPCR, flow, etc.) done. I'd really much rather buy a pre-made unit - ideally these raspberry pies, since my lab uses cage racks for mice and so putting a permanently connected laptop on the side isn't exactly ideal.

Any information on this topic would be greatly appreciated. Thank you!

[Hamid Taghipourbibalan]

Hello!

RTFED is a software platform that enhances the utility of FED3 devices, so you can not find them "pre-made"; you just purchase the FED3 units and flash them with the library available here :
https://github.com/mccutcheonlab/FED_RT/tree/main/source/FED3_Library/RTT

After that, you can connect your FED3 devices to a Windows computer and run the RTFED GUI to control all your FED3 units from a Windows computer/laptop, receive the data online on a Google spreadsheet, or set notifications for JAMs, number of pellets taken, and such.
I highly recommend using a big enough screen, maybe more than 20 inches, because I have not made the GUI very adjustable to different screen sizes ;)

If you do not need to integrate your FED3 with external devices, e.g., cameras or fibre photometry systems, and building a Pi system from scratch is a hassle for you, I'd suggest not using the Pi version. Even with the Raspberry Pi, you will need to have the Pi ( as a computer) with a screen and keyboard to run the RTFEDPi.

Please take a look at our GitHub page:
https://github.com/mccutcheonlab/FED_RT/tree/main
also note that there is an additional branch for the Pi version :
https://github.com/mccutcheonlab/FED_RT/tree/RTFEDPi

I hope this helps you.
I recommend running simulation pilots with RTFED before starting your experiments to ensure everything works as expected. :)


Cheers.
Hamid.

Hamid Taghipour Bibalan

Research assistant @ BiRBSLab, 

Ph.D. candidate in Behavioural Neuroscience @ MccutcheonLab, 

UiT | Tromsø | Norway

Contact:+4746566050

LINKEDIN, GitHub

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[Winston Li]

Thank you so much!

[Winston Li]

A followup questions - how offline friendly is RTFED?

I see that there is a shortterm RAM storage for RTFED data in case wifi goes out, but how long is that short term last?

My situation is that using a windows laptop constantly connected to several FED3 units, sometimes the university public wifi kicks off devices. I'm concerned about the laptop being kicked off on the weekend, and thereby not receiving jam alerts from the google spreadsheet, unaware of issues until I can check the laptop on monday.

In your opinion, if my wi-fi situation is a bit spotty, should I perhaps not bother with RTFED at all and simply rely on the in-built SD card?

On Monday, February 16, 2026 at 2:48:30 PM UTC-5 htbi...@gmail.com wrote: