Mechanical stimulation stand demo

Script explanation

The script below runs a 1 second vibration at three different strengths from the strongest to the weakest. The script will demonstrate two different ways of writing the code either using a ZCOMMAND in which the timings would be written in milliseconds, or using GPO commands which are written in seconds. For delivering vibrations in short bursts of less than 1 second we recommend only using the ZCOMMAND option for longer vibrations of multiple seconds or minutes it would be simpler to write the time in seconds using the GPO command but ZCOMMAND would also work well. 

DEFINE WAIT_TIME 1  

ACTION MAIN

# strong vibration
     ZCOMMAND("G3#1 P1000 G3#0")
     WAIT(WAIT_TIME)

# or use
    SET(GPO3,1)
    WAIT(WAIT_TIME)
    
     SET(GPO3,0) 
    WAIT(WAIT_TIME)
    
    
# medium vibration
     ZCOMMAND("G4#1 P1000 G4#0")
     WAIT(WAIT_TIME)
     
# or use
    SET(GPO4,1)
    WAIT(WAIT_TIME)
    
     SET(GPO4,0) 
       WAIT(WAIT_TIME)
    
    
# weak vibration
     ZCOMMAND("G5#1 P1000 G5#0")
     WAIT(WAIT_TIME)
     
# or use
    SET(GPO5,1)
       WAIT(WAIT_TIME)
    
     SET(GPO5,0) 
    WAIT(WAIT_TIME)


#sequence of the levels of vibrations
    ZCOMMAND("G3#1 P1000 G3#0 P500 G4#1 P500 G4#0 P500 G5#1 P500 G5#0 P500 ")
    WAIT(WAIT_TIME)
    
COMPLETE

The DEFINE command at the top of the script sets WAIT_TIME used later in the script as 1 second. 

There are three GPO commands each relates to a different strength of vibration with GPO3 being the strongest followed by GPO4 and the weakest is GPO5. Setting a GPO# command to 1 turns the vibration on at the specified strength, setting the GPO# to 0 turns the vibration stimuli off. Alternatively if using a ZCOMMAND you can use a shorthand of G3#1 and G3#0 to turn GPO3 on and off. 

The code ZCOMMAND("G3#1 P1000 G3#0"). Turns the vibration stimuli on at the greatest strength waits (P = pause) for 1000 milliseconds then turns the stimuli off. 

The code:
SET(GPO3,1)            = Turns vibration stimuli on at greatest strength  
WAIT(WAIT_TIME)   = Waits the WAIT_TIME defined at the top of the script as 1 second
SET(GPO3,0)            = Turns vibration stimuli off 

The same principles apply for the GPO4 (G#4) and GPO5 (G#5) commands 

The final ZCOMMAND turns on the strongest vibration setting > pauses for 1000ms > turns off vibration > pauses for 500ms > turns on the medium vibration setting > pauses for 500ms > turns off vibration > pauses for 500ms > tuns on the lowest vibration setting > pauses for 500ms > turns off vibration. 

Further adjustments to the vibration strength 

The vibration of the mechanical stimulation stand is caused by motors spinning an eccentric weight. We run the motor at 3 different strengths by using a resistor to reduce the peak current through the motor. However please note that the motor has to accelerate from stationary to the maximum speed attainable when power is supplied. This offers another way to change the stimulus felt by the animals - shorter bursts of current (by reducing the P time in the zcommand ) will deliver weaker vibrations as the motor will not have had time to accelerate to full speed. We have used 40 ms in our testing - but please experiment yourself to find something that works for you.

Script download

To download the mechanical stimulation stand demo script as a .zs file (The file type that Zantiks' software reads), choose the "Save File As", or "Save Linked File As" or "Save Link As" (depends on if you are using Widows or Mac OS and which browser) option in the right-click dialogue box. Clicking on the script name hyperlink will open a read-only version of the script.

Script download: Mechanical_stim_stand_demo.zs