Arduino and Digital input no getting into acq. board

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Reinder Dorman

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Sep 21, 2017, 10:08:12 AM9/21/17
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Hello all,

I've been working on getting an arduino to send an event-signal to the ephys box. What I seem to remember from my brief previous experience in a lab with ephys, which used a daq card, to a few BNC plugs on the I/O board, and via HDMI to the acq. board. To my recollection two digital channels were used here. 

I am working on my current setup with my memories and the open-ephys wiki. My current setup had an arduino with I/O shield on it. The arduino generates a digital pulse, which is send over the HDMI cable. As a sanity check, I hooked up I/O board with BNC cables, and did see the digital pulses on the BNC connectors. Ergo, I'd say the pulses generated and send over the HDMI and on the correct channels, and end up in the acq. board.

However, I do not see see any event channels in the GUI.

Intuitively, I feel like I should adjust some settings in the GUI, but I don't read about this in the wiki nor elsewhere, nor do I see any option to do so in the GUI. 

Does anyone know if i'm forgetting about something here? (not leaving out the possiblity that perhapse the HDMI connector on the board is perhapse loose or something silly).



Reinder Dorman

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Sep 22, 2017, 11:24:36 AM9/22/17
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edit: Did some checking inside the OpenEphys box, and the continuity HDMI connector seems to be working fine (tested simply by measuring resistance between the board and a HDMI connected I/O board. 

Reinder Dorman

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Sep 25, 2017, 10:19:39 AM9/25/17
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edit2: While succesfully recording I am able to measure the digital input on the board itself (at 2.4V, which should be a HIGH digital pulse on a 3.3V circuit if I recall). 
However, no event is being triggered in the GUI.

I'm starting to wonder if perhapse the board is malfunctioning.

Josh Siegle

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Sep 27, 2017, 10:45:44 AM9/27/17
to Reinder Dorman, Open Ephys
Hi Reinder,

What type of Arduino are you using? The digital inputs take 5V signals, and some Arduinos have 3.3V outputs.

Also, it’s possible that the digital inputs are coming in, they’re just not showing up in the LFP Viewer if the event display is disabled. Have you checked to make sure the event display is on?

Josh

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Reinder Dorman

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Sep 28, 2017, 2:13:38 AM9/28/17
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Hi Josh, Thanks for thinking along!

I'm using a Arduino Uno, and I measure 5V on the HDMI cable. I did notice that when I measured this input on the board during acquisition (on the back of the board you can access the 8 connectors near the HDMI on the digital in side) it reaches 2.4V. I assume this is because the level shifter. According to google, 2.4V should still be a 'high' in a 3.3V system. At the moment I have a simple program on the Arduino running, putting the different pins on 'high' for a second. Could it be the digital signal input has to be more a pulsing sequence? 

On the GUI all the event channels were checked on. I have also tried record a short sample and have a look at the .event file, but there do not seem to be any recorded events here (although I have to say I'm not sure yet about the details of the data structure so I could be way of here). My next step was indeed to reinstall the GUI, in the hope a little bug snuck in somewhere.

Best, Reinder

Josh Siegle

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Sep 29, 2017, 12:18:32 PM9/29/17
to Reinder Dorman, Open Ephys
Hi Reinder,

Hmm, I’d definitely expect the digital signals to show up in the GUI in that case. Just to be sure—you have the HDMI cable plugged into the right-most input? (closest one to the headstage connectors)

If it’s still not working, let me know and we can send you a replacement board.

Josh


Aarón Cuevas

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Oct 1, 2017, 10:00:23 PM10/1/17
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Another common debug technique for such issues is to plug the HDMI board to the analog input (3rd from the headstage connectors, or 2nd from the left) and see if the signals are visible in the LFP viewer when acquitring. (Note that the signals must be 5V max, as more could damage the board adcs)
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Reinder Dorman

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Oct 2, 2017, 2:39:02 AM10/2/17
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Hi Josh, Aaron,

@ Josh, I agree, I'd expect it too! And indeed I use the right most output.

@ Aaron, I tried the analog input, but to no avail. if i'm correct, I would expect to see the pulse in the LFP viewer on the specific analog channels, but this is not the case.

At the moment I am ruling out any issues on the PC's side by doing a good scrubbing of the PC and reinstalling the GUI. Will report back! 

Reinder Dorman

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Oct 3, 2017, 6:02:19 AM10/3/17
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I have now tried to test the board on 2 other pc's (ubuntu and windows), since this week the board is undetected. Have re-compiled/re-installed the GUI a few times, too special notice to the correct libraries, but it won't be detected. 

When pluging in the power, the led's all flash briefly, but other then that there does not seem to be any activity. (But in all honesty I don't recall the led's normal behaviour)

@Josh, based on your response, it sounds like you think the board might be malfunctioning?

Best,
Reinder


On Thursday, September 21, 2017 at 4:08:12 PM UTC+2, Reinder Dorman wrote:

Josh Siegle

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Oct 3, 2017, 11:50:31 AM10/3/17
to Reinder Dorman, Open Ephys
Yes, it definitely sounds like something is wrong. I’ll put you in touch with OEPS, who can send you a replacement.

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chiyu...@gmail.com

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May 28, 2023, 3:28:47 PM5/28/23
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Hello,
Sorry, I would like ask my question here to get more help as part of the OpenEphys team is away on holiday until the June 12th.

We bought an acq. board this year and started to test it with v0.6.4 GUI. First, I was hoping to test if the Arduino-generated TTL pulse can be picked up by the acquisition board. I have checked the Arduino's pulse by oscilloscope.
The shape of the TTL was a bit weird but the amplitude of peak voltage is around 5V. Then I connected the arduino via BNC connector to OpenEphys IO board and then got the OpenEphys IO board connecting to the Digital Input of the acq. board.
When I started the GUI and acquisition, there was no signal shown in the GUI. I have also tried removing TTL panels on the GUI, connecting IO board to the Analog Input port. Nothing changed. Is there anything you would suggest me to troubleshoot this?

condensed console log (because google forum complained my message was too long) :  Open Ephys GUI v0.6.4 (Plugin API v8), JUCE v6.0.8, Windows 11, CPU: AMD Ryzen 5 5600X 6-Core Processor (12 core), Audio device name: Speakers (Realtek High Definition Audio), Audio device type: Windows Audio, Audio output channels: 2, Audio device sample rate: 44100, Audio device buffer size: 1024, Loading configuration from C:\ProgramData\Open Ephys\configs-api8\lastConfig.xml, Creating processor with name: OE FPGA Acquisition Board, Open Ephys ECP5-ONI FPGA open. Gateware version v1.0 (my PC is Windows 11 but it still says Windows 10 on the console).

Best Regards
Chiyu
openEphysGUI.png
photo1.jpg

Jon Newman

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May 29, 2023, 11:12:06 AM5/29/23
to chiyu...@gmail.com, Open Ephys
Hi Chiyu,

- The square-wave looks like that on the scope because channel 1 is AC-coupled (anything flat in the signal will be removed). DC couple that channel and the squarewave will look normal.
- Are you plugging the breakout board into the correct HDMI connector on the acquisition board? https://open-ephys.github.io/acq-board-docs/User-Manual/Peripheral-devices.html

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