BPod Lickport IR Beam Sensor Unresponsive

CarlosSanchez

I use a lickport and the other day, the infrared sensor suddenly stopped transmitting information to our bpod. To fix this, we have attempted:

replacing the pcb of the lickport
replacing the lickport itself
using a new bpod finite state machine
changing the ethernet cable we use to connect the bpod to the lickport
changing the port on the bpod that we connect the lickport to
restarting our computer
using a completely different computer setup
checking if the IR beam on a mouse behavior port instead of the lickport is responsive.

Unfortunately, none of these have worked. Has anyone else run into this issue before and know how to solve it?

Josh

It sounds like you replaced every part of the setup:

State machine
PC
Cables
Port
Port PCB

I could imagine an issue like this being caused by a bright source of infrared light pointed at the setup from above or below. That way, even when the beam is "blocked", IR from the second source can get through to the sensor, making it appear non-responsive.

Other than that, do you have a rig that does work? If so, swapping these parts one at a time into the working rig can constrain the possibilities.

Josh