Testing psychopy triggers-sent codes in ActiveView without connecting the AD-Box

[CSaracini]

Hello everybody! I am writing to ask if (to your knowledge) there is the possibility to test if psychopy-sent custom triggers work in real-time register mode in ActiveView without the need to connect the AD-Box and other devices (for example, by means of a parallel-port simulation or something like that, or just the parallel port receiver).
My question is due to the fact that we have only one BioSemi in our lab and it's constantly used to recollect data from subjects in these days till late in the evening, and it's very difficult to find it free to just test if triggers are properly sent.
The idea is to write the program in psychopy in my own laptop and be able to check if triggers work in ActiveView in the same laptop (even from home). Do you have any idea on how we could solve this problem without the need to buy an entire new set of EEG?

Thank you in advance for any information you could give me.
Chiara

[Coen]

You can connect 8 LEDs between pins 1-8 and 37 (ground) of the USB trigger interface. The outputs are 3V with 1 kOhm in series so the LED current approx. 1 mA. With a low-current LED , the 8 millisecond pulses are well visible (we tested this). This will allow you to monitor the 8 trigger lines without an ActiveTwo system connected.

Best regards, Coen (BioSemi)

[CSaracini]

Many thanks for your answer.
In this case, I guess that we couldn't see our custom digit-pin that we are sending, for example, if I tell psychopy to send an 11 code when an image is shown, a 12 code for another image and 13 for another one and moreover register triggers for subject's answers to these images with other different codes (let's say, 31, 32, 33) plus the block code and a start/stop trigger, am I right? These 8 LEDs are only showing that some trigger is being sent, not the detail of the numeric code I guess.
We would like to see these codes appearing live (while they are being sent in psychopy) in the ActiveView panel but without the need to connect the AD-Box, which is being used by someone else for collecting data in the lab. Maybe what we want is impossible. We were thinking if the device could be simulated or something like that.

Please let me know if I misunderstood something. Anyway, thank you again for your fast answer.
Chiara

[Coen]

The 8 trigger lines are 8 bits for the codes 0 to 255, so you can convert the flashing LEDs to numbers. You may want to use Actitools902 ---> Trigger to make the conversion easy.

It is not possible to see the triggers in ActiView without a connected ActiveTwo system (but it can be a stripped down system without channels).

The LED method does all you need for a few Euro whereas a stripped down system would still cost a few thousand Euro.

Best regards, Coen (BioSemi)

[CSaracini]

Great! Thank you a lot Coen, we will try the homemade solution then...I didn't know about the Actitools902 ---> Trigger tool.

Best greetings,
Chiara