shuttleDrive EIB with Omnetics 18pin connector

[Hemin FENG]

Hi all,

I found there are only four versions of EIB in the open-ephys store, but the headstage we use is a two-wire 32 channel one, with each wire connected with a 18pin omnetics connector.

Does anyone have a idea how to customize the EIB to make it compatible with our 18pin omnetics headstage? I need to put two 18pin connectors in a 32channel EIB. Can I find some commercial company to provide this customization service?

Any suggestions are greatly appreciated!

Thanks,

Hemin

[Jakob Voigts]

Hi Hemin,

If in understand correctly, you're using 2x16 channel headstages?

We don't make 2x16 EIBs  because of the availability of 32 and 64 ch headstages.

You could either design such an EIB in kicad/eagle and have it made by some pcb place, or pay for someone to do this for you.

In the latter case it will likely be cheaper to just get a 32 or 64 channel headstage.

best,

jakob

[Hemin FENG]

Hi Jakob

Thanks for your reply!

Yes we are using 2x16 headstages from neuralynx.

I just want to update this thread just in case someone encounter the same problem as mine.

Actually we found the solution is pretty straightforward, that is, just to use the 2x16 EIB from your old version flexdrive!

https://github.com/open-ephys/flexDrive/tree/master/Electrode%20Interface%20Boards/Omnetics%202x16

The diameter of this EIB is a little bit larger than the current shuttledrive body but it is not a big problem as we can use super glu to adhere them very well. (PS: we need to use the large EIB gold pin as the larger hole size)

We can simply use the PCB printing service (seeedstudio or similar companies, I used a company in Taiwan) to get this EIB and solder two omnetics connectors on it by ourselves. Or you can even out-source this soldering service if you want.

Now we found it works very well and the cost is affordable to us (20 usd for each EIB but I think it can be lower if you find a reliable vendor), especially when compared to the 2000USD headstage!

Thank you all for developing this wonderful open-source tool for the scientific research and create this friendly environment for helping with each other!

Best

Hemin

[Jakob Voigts]

That's good to hear! I think with some tweaking you could even make this design a bit smaller to fit the current shuttledrives. I'm not sure any more exactly how much you'd have to reduce the diameter but I bet its possible. But as you say, a bit of extra height is not a big deal either as long as you can get to the screws well enough.

Now your main problem is likely going to be finding the omnetics connectors :/

Oh, and I'd suggest using 5min epoxy for gluing these on, I found that to be a bit more reliable than super glue.

best,

jakob

[Hemin FENG]

Thanks for your kind suggestion Jakob. We'll use the 5 min epoxy from now on.

We'll try to shrink the diameter of EIB when we are going to order the next batch of them.

The omnetics connectors are inevitable cost but good news is we can re-use them as many times as possible. Thanks for your detailed document so that we can easily find out the certain catlog of the connector ( A79042-001 / NPD-18-VV-GS ).

Thanks!

Hemin