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5.3 Support and Troubleshooting
Neuropixels probes are provided to the neuroscience research community at low cost on a not-for-
profit basis. All technical and user support is based on a community support model.
To learn how to use the Neuropixels probe and control system, new users are encouraged to attend
one of the regularly organized user workshops or training courses prior to using the probes.
are currently offered by University College London through a grant by the Wellcome Trust and
generously supported by the Sainsbury-Wellcome Centre.
If your Neuropixels probes appear to malfunction and not perform to specifications, we encourage you
to:
Carefully read this
•
Take advantage of the growing knowledge base shared on various online
•
collaboration platforms: The
both SpikeGLX and Open Ephys are helpful information sources. A list of available web-based
resources is available at www.neuropixels.org.
As a final option, consult your designated Neuropixels Superuser/Specialist. The original
•
recipient of your Neuropixels probes will be given the contact information of a Neuropixels
Superuser/Specialist in your local geography.
In the unfortunate event that your probe is defective and/or non-functional your Neuropixels
Superuser/Specialist will confirm this to IMEC directly. IMEC will then contact you and discuss a suitable
remedy and process to make sure that you have functional Neuropixels probes. Please wait until an
IMEC Neuropixels representative contacts the person who ordered the probes, and please correspond
ONLY with the designated person from IMEC who reaches out to you. This will be the fastest and most
efficient mechanism for you to resolve issues with your Neuropixels probes. Please do not contact IMEC
directly at any of the generic IMEC email contact information addresses.
In the following we describe various tests that you can perform to identify the root cause of observed
failures.
Visual Inspection
Inspect your probe and system components for visible defects. The probe shank should also be
inspected under a microscope to determine possible debris contamination or physical damage such as
scratches.
Built-In Self-Tests
As a good practice you should start debugging your probe and/or control system by first running the
BISTs which must be enabled in the application software. The results will indicate the type and location
of possible failures modes. On system level, these tests verify whether all power and data links are
NEUROPIXELS 1.0 USER MANUAL V1.0.5
2 reference lines along the shank
3.84 mm
Figure 35: Reference electrode selectivity.
User Manual
.
Neuropixels Slack channel
To Recording
Electrode
Recording
IN
Channel
REF
Ext
and a
GitHub Wiki.
Courses
In addition,
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