Re: [DIYbio] Re: spectralworkbench.org diy spectrophotometer

Simon that is wavelength calibration I am talking about intensity/amplitude calibration. The fact that CCDs used in cameras do not have a linear response to light across the spectrum makes it even more difficult. See: http://www.maxmax.com/spectral_response.htm for an example of what I am talking about.




On Mon, Feb 4, 2013 at 6:31 PM, Simon Quellen Field <sfield@scitoys.com> wrote:
That's what calibration is for.

But for DIYBio purposes, often what you want is simply a ratio of the values at two different wavelengths, and even that can be plus or minus 10 percent and you are still happy.

Identifying certain dye molecules like the chlorophylls is a matter of looking for peaks at certain wavelengths. The same goes for emission or absorption lines for chemical elements and simple compounds. For that, calibrating using mercury vapor lines is pretty easy, and the device under discussion has calibration procedures and software designed for that (the one on my web site self-calibrates automatically). As you can see from the spectrograms on that site, my design gets sub-nanometer resolution on the peaks for things like sharp emission lines. And it is similarly inexpensive, at the cost of some inconvenience. The device under discussion is more compact, and plugs nicely into your USB port for automatic analysis. Replacing the DVD with some high resolution diffraction grating (and tilting the grating to get better focus at different wavelengths) might go a long way to increase its resolution.

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On Mon, Feb 4, 2013 at 2:17 PM, Josiah Zayner <josiah.zayner@gmail.com> wrote:
One major issue is the lack of data on the spectral response of the camera/cameras. CCDs respond to different wavelengths of light differently. Difficult to analyze any data obtained using diffraction grating because of that unless a spectral response curve is measured.


On Monday, February 4, 2013 2:52:45 PM UTC-6, Mackenzie Cowell wrote:
Ah ha, calibration instructions! http://publiclaboratory.org/wiki/spectral-workbench-calibration

Well I'm interested in building one of these to play with.  Will let you all know how it goes.


On Mon, Feb 4, 2013 at 12:49 PM, Mac Cowell <m...@diybio.org> wrote:
What do you all think about the Public Laboratory for Open Technology and Science (PLOTS) spectrophotometer design?

They have developed instructions for building a basic spectrophotometer from a low-cost webcam, electrical-conduit housing, and a fragment of a DVD as a diffraction grating.  Seems like the devil is in the details for something like this and they have paid a fair amount of attention to the details.

Build instructions: http://publiclaboratory.org/wiki/dsk

What about calibration?  I think I missed that step in their instructions...

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