Support

Older customers will often call the big silver acquisition machine a “Harvey Box”, since they associate the data processor with its inventor, Harvey Wiggins. Nowadays we typically call it the MAP box.

Plexon is always willing to help interface third party hardware to our own. Our design engineers are able to build custom parts, but the lead time is often long since the man hours involved with prototyping and testing can be extensive. We provide pin diagrams and voltage requirement information on our website if you are looking to do it yourself.

If you have to reinstall the NI cards (on a new computer, or after wiping the hard drive), then there are several important steps to take. Download the Traditional NI-DAQ (Legacy) Version 7.4.1 here - http://digital.ni.com/softlib.nsf/websearch/3DBF3D343476A28F8625709E006A4937

You will have to register on the NI website to do this, but it’s a quick process. The download is a 400 megabyte .zip file, so make sure you have the space and time. After downloading, unzip the file to a directory you’ll remember. The most important step is that you have to REMOVE the NI cards from the computer BEFORE installing the drivers. Power down the computer and remove the cards. Power on, and then install the drivers. Power down again, replace the cards in their original location, and then power on. Windows will recognize the cards, and locate the drivers automatically.

PBX preamps have 1-pole filtering on both the upper and lower bandpass. PBX2 preamps have 2-pole filtering on the low-cutoff (high-pass) side, and 4-pole filtering on the high-cutoff (low-pass) side. Only the PBX preamp has the programmable referencing option, as controlled by the REF2 software. This is identified by the “-r” in the preamp description, such as PBX/32sp-r/16fp. The “-r” at the end of the spike board description means that programmable referencing is available on the spike boards.

The BNC connector labeled “SPK” outputs the spike signal from the channel selected in SortClient’s multi-channel display. This is useful for viewing the spike channel in an oscilloscope, or hearing the output on a speaker.

There are two ways to do this. The first way is quick and easy, but limited. On the TIM board is a BNC plug called EVT. This will output a TTL pulse on a threshold crossing of the currently selected unit in SortClient. Obviously, this is limited because it’s only going to be for the one unit you have selected. The second way involves the Digital Out (DOUT) sub board on the DSP boards. Each DOUT can give a pulse for eight channels for two units per channel. The channel numbers it can output depend on where the DOUT is physically located. Top most slot is channels 1-8, next one down is 9-16, and so on. If you want to add DOUT boards to your MAP system, contact Plexon for a quote.

I recommend using something like CamStudio (http://www.camstudio.org/), or any other open source, low computational overhead desktop capture program.

If you’re having hardware problems with a MAP system, then we will always want you to use a headstage tester unit along with the test .wav file located here - TestSpike&FPdata-1min.wav

Connect the audio cable and the headstage to the tester board, and the headstage to the preamp with headstage cable. The audio file is played from the computer to the headstage tester where is passes through resistors to normal spike levels. Then you’ll be able to see simulated spikes going through the headstage and preamp to the MAP box. Once you have this baseline, we can start solving problems.

TR stands for True Reference, and GR stands for Ground Reference. The difference is that a TR headstage uses a dedicated electrode as the signal reference, and a GR uses the common ground from the preamp. Some people use TR to get rid of stimulation or movement artifacts. The reference electrode will pick up the same artifact that the other electrodes will get, and this will be subtracted out in the blue preamp box.

16V or 32V headstages can use either a reference electrode, or a buffered ground. Configuring your preamp to utilize either is usually a matter of setting a few jumper pins correctly. The PBX2 line of preamps has these jumpers on the preamp board itself, and the PBX line has the jumpers on the header board where the headstage cable plugs in. For more information, go to the document search at http://www.plexoninc.com/support/cms.html, and type in “VLSI referencing” in the keyword search.

NeuroExplorer comes from a third party developer, and they prefer that any NeuroExplorer technical support questions go directly to them. See www.NeuroExplorer.com for more information.

Plexon has two software development kits available on our web site available in MATLAB and C++. The first SDK deals with directly accessing the data collected by the Server application, called the Client Development Kit. The second SDK is for reading the Plexon file formats, PLX and DDT. Both kits have sample programs and detailed comments in each source file.

Yes, but be careful not to lose them.

Lately we have noticed that this problem, typically observed on laptops, can be easily solved by downloading the latest Sentinel drivers for the key. This driver is located here - www.safenet-inc.com/support/tech/sentinel.asp. Click on the “Sentinel Key Driver (for Windows only)” link.

Plexon has two software development kits available on our web site available in MATLAB and C++. The first SDK deals with directly accessing the data collected by the Server application, called the Client Development Kit. The second SDK is for reading the Plexon file formats, PLX and DDT. Both kits have sample programs and detailed comments in each source file.

Offline Sorter can import many of the widely used file formats from other acquisition systems. However, if another company changes anything in the way they record their data, the file import code will likely not be able to correctly read the data.

Yes, but be careful not to lose them.

Lately we have noticed that this problem, typically observed on laptops, can be easily solved by downloading the latest Sentinel drivers for the key. This driver is located here - www.safenet-inc.com/support/tech/sentinel.asp. Click on the “Sentinel Key Driver (for Windows only)” link.