Feeding Experimentation Device (FED) 2.0

We have recorded 6 FEDs for well over a week straight (they are doing great!).  Pellet data from these devices is downloadable here:

Example FED2 data

If anyone wants to discuss building analyses tools for this data (meal patterns, nigh/day feeding, etc) please message me!

I just uploaded a document to the files section containing operating instructions.  Describes a few quirks like needing to re-flash to reset the date/time.  Maybe in a future build I'll come up with a workaround that doesn't require that but for now that's how it's done!

We have access to 3D printers that work fine for printing FED, but I wanted to explore commercial solutions for this.  These may be of interest for people who don't have a 3D printer or who want to print multiple FEDs quickly.  So I ordered a complete FED from Shapeways and it arrived today.

Quick price comparison: We estimate 1 complete FED costs about $8 in PLA filament for us to print, while printing a FED in the same material with Shapeways cost $100.41.  So it's a lot more $$, but they do nice work and it's very convenient.  The Shapeways FED parts look excellent, a bit nicer than what we print in our lab.

Also, uploading parts to Shapeways allowed us to answer the question of how much it costs to print FED in different materials:

Nylon? $253.32  

Steel?  $728.57  

14K Gold????  $71,746.13!  (Please send me photos if you go for the gold!)

We've been running 6 FEDs for 1 week and all have functioned well.  One drained its battery faster than the others, which may suggest that it has a problem dispensing that keeps the motor going longer than the others.  But 5 are perfect.  Figure 1. Example feeding pattern of one mouse:

We built six FED2.0's last week, and after bench testing them we started them running with mice last Thursday.  I'll post an update here on how they are functioning in a real world test!

We published FED1.0 in 2016 and distributed it to ~10 labs.  After receiving feedback on this device over the last year we redesigned FED2.0 to address several issues.  This is the release and build instructions for FED2.0.  We look forward to comments so we can improve it further!