Acquisition Blocks

The HMCLS device acquires neural signals from up to 32 channels simultaneously (16 or 32, depending on the connected headstage).

Block Reference

Block	Section	Description
Headstage setup	Setup	Configures the acquisition hardware. Must run first.
SPEED (sample rate)	Setup	Sets sample rate (1–65535; lower = faster).
RMS on	Setup	Starts the RMS computation window.
ACQ start	Setup	Starts the acquisition pipeline.
ACQ stop	Loop	Stops acquisition.
RMS off	Loop	Stops RMS computation.
RMS ready → var	Loop	Writes 1 into var when the RMS window is full.
RMS get → var	Loop	Reads channel RMS amplitude into a variable.
TIME get → variable	Loop	Reads elapsed ms since ACQ start. Returns 0 if not running.
CHANNELS get → variable	Loop	Reads the number of channels being acquired.
SPIKE get → variables	Loop	Reads last spike on a channel: amplitude + timestamp.

Typical Setup Sequence

SETUP

Acquisition

headstage setup

Acquisition

SPEEDrate1000

Acquisition

RMS on

Acquisition

ACQ start

LOOP ~1 kHz

Acquisition

RMS getch0→rms_val

Acquisition

SPIKE getch0→ ampamplitudetstimestamp

SPIKE get

Reads the most recent spike event recorded on a specific channel.

Parameter	Range	Description
channel	0 to channels − 1	Which channel to read
amplitude variable	any declared variable	Receives the spike amplitude
timestamp variable	any declared variable	Receives time (ms since ACQ start)

This block is loop only. It returns the last detected spike regardless of when it fired. Use an if flag block (flag 33+channel) to check if a new spike occurred before calling SPIKE get.

CHANNELS get

Writes the number of channels currently acquired (16 or 32 depending on the headstage, or the limit set by the application) into a variable. Use it to size loops that go through every channel instead of hard-coding 32.

This block is loop only.