ANY-maze Help > I/O devices supported by ANY-maze > I/O errors that may occur during a test > Pellet Dispenser error

Pellet Dispenser error

Introduction

Pellet Dispensers can be connected to an ANY-maze Digital interface or ANY-maze Relay interface. For basic pellet dispensers, ANY-maze can dispense a pellet by simply generating a simple output signal. Other pellet dispensers (for example, the Ugo Basile pellet dispenser, or some pellet dispensers connected to the ANY-maze Operant interfaces) have a feedback mechanism that allows the device to communicate with ANY-maze when the pellet has dispensed successfully. In case of a failure to dispense a pellet, ANY-maze can sometimes determine the reason for failure from the feedback received - when this happens, an error will be reported in the Errors & Warnings panel for the relevant apparatus on the Tests page.

Details

For pellet dispensers with feedback, the following specific error conditions can be reported:

Out of pellets

The pellet dispenser has run out of pellets. Simply refill the dispenser, and the next time the pellet dispenser is asked to dispense a pellet, it will do so.

Pellet dispenser is blocked

This error occurs if the tube that dispenses the pellet has become blocked, or there is some other mechanical failure. Try clearing out the tube; if this does not resolve the problem then please contact ANY-maze Support.

Pellet dispenser is not connected

ANY-maze cannot communicate with the pellet dispenser. This may happen if the device has become unplugged; check that the cable leading to the pellet dispenser is plugged in securely.

Timed out waiting for feedback

This error occurs if ANY-maze asks the pellet dispenser to dispense a pellet, but never receives any feedback at all.

Note that these specific errors will only be reported for pellet dispensers which report this level of detail to ANY-maze. Some pellet dispensers only provide a general error status, in which case ANY-maze will simply report that a pellet failed to dispense - it's up to you to work out why this happened.

Additional information

Some pellet dispensers (for example, some of those attached to Med Associates cages) will only report an error some time after the error has actually occurred - this could be several seconds later. In this case, ANY-maze will report the error state when it is notified by the pellet dispenser.

ANY-maze will report the error as soon as it is notified of the problem, but if it had tried to dispense any more pellets in the meantime, those pellets would probably not have been dispensed. However, ANY-maze would not yet be aware of this, and so the results for the test would indicate that those pellets had been dispensed.

If you refill the pellet dispenser, then any further pellets that are dispensed should be dispensed successfully (and counted by ANY-maze at the point they were dispensed). However if the pellet dispenser is still in an error state at this point, ANY-maze may count the pellets but the pellet dispenser may not actually dispense them.

So to summarise - any pellets that ANY-maze tries to dispense in the time before it finds out that the hopper is empty will be counted, but may not be dispensed.

Note that you can have ANY-maze report to you that it is out of pellets, by using a procedure to send you an Alert message in response to the 'Pellet dispenser dispense failed' event.

For further information about these errors, please contact ANY-maze Support.

ANY-maze help topic T1316