Triggering Playback

Triggering of the Pulse Pal output channels can be done either through the hardware trigger channels or through software. The Bonsai.PulsePal package provides operators to configure and use both approaches.

Link output channels to hardware trigger channels

When configuring output channels in the CreatePulsepal or ConfigureOutputChannel operators, these properties must be set to link playback to either of the hardware triggers.

Category	Property Name	Value	Description
Pulse Trigger	TriggerOnChannel1	True/False	Set to True to enable trigger on this hardware channel
Pulse Trigger	TriggerOnChannel2	True/False	Set to True to enable trigger on this hardware channel

Configure hardware trigger channels

Configuration of the hardware trigger channels can be set either during the initial connection CreatePulsepal or modified during workflow execution using the ConfigureTriggerChannel operator. The most important parameter to adjust is the ToggleMode property which specifies the behavior of the trigger channel.

• Normal mode (default): an incoming trigger (low to high logic transition) received by a trigger channel will start pulse trains on all linked output channels. Additional trigger pulses received during playback of the pulse train will be ignored.

• Toggle mode: an incoming trigger received by a trigger channel will start pulse trains on linked output channels. If an additional trigger pulse is detected during playback, the pulse trains on all linked output channels are stopped.

• Pulse Gated mode: a low to high logic transition starts playback and a high to low transition stops playback.

Software trigger

Playback of output channels can be triggered in software by the TriggerOutputChannels operator. In the example below, triggering of the output channels is linked to a keypress, but they could also be easily linked to other Bonsai events.

Set fixed voltage

A constant, fixed voltage can also be set immediately on any output channel by using the SetFixedVoltage operator.