Getting Started

You can follow the Quickstart Guide to learn how to start collecting data right away. However, we recommend reading the Hardware Guide page carefully if you’re going to use our hardware, and especially if you’re going to build it. When something goes wrong, or if your data look suspicious, knowing the basics of how the hardware works makes it easier to troubleshoot. And the more people who have a thorough understanding of the Open Ephys ecosystem, the easier it is to support new users.

We recommend checking out our course materials on extracellular electrophysiology acquisition, which goes into the fundamentals of how tiny extracellular voltages are detected, amplified and digitized in these kinds of digital multichannel acquisition systems.

Different Acquisition Board generations function differently. The Differences Between Generations section points out the different hardware, drivers, gateware, software compatibility and functionality aspects that vary. Being aware of the differences will help you navigate these docs.