Re: [DIYbio] Re: Open-Source Spectrometer

Well the spectrophotometer is a multi-sub-system device... so you can
swap (when its confirmed to work) my board in-place of the webcam on
the PLOTS 'spectrometer mount' (the rest of the spectrometer that
includes the optics) and have a much better instrument.

Realistically though, I kind of doubt spectrophotometers will become
cheap through design only. The demand has to be present to make things
like optics cheaper. This will only happen if someone can figure out
how to make a really good device, for really cheap, and appeal to
large markets (i.e. home consumers, non-laboratory people).

The $76 for electronics right now will likely deflate a bit, if I
convert to a 2-layer board the PCB price is cut in half immediately,
not counting further board optimization that could reduce the real
estate.

I actually got the price wrong, it was late and I guess I am bad with
math when I'm tired :P

With $46 of parts, and 3 PCBs for $66, that comes to $22 per PCB... so
$68 for a low-noise, fast speed, PC-less single-line camera.

The price inflation to $300 includes an concave flat-field
aberration-corrected grating... from China its $150... from the USA
it's about $800... but the upside is this type of grating ensures a
very linear frequency transform (the separation of mixed light into
monochromatic along the sensor) and has low higher-order effects... so
better SNR basically. This is VERY useful for something like Raman
spectroscopy. Also a UV-compatible fiber optic is not cheap, ~$80.

Adding onto the $300 price tag for a great device, would be ~$200 in
filters, and a cheap $5 laser or a nicer few hundred $ laser
(wavelength stable, good coherence, cheap lasers can do this but is
hit-or-miss according to Sam's laser FAQ)... and you make it to $500
or $700 total cost... but you've got a Raman spectrometer with
reflectance probe capability (for dipping into a stream or some
unknown liquid container, for example) that usually start at around
$7k or so. The $20k Raman spectrometers (the 'gun' looking variety)
come with pattern matching and a database of existing chemicals... the
PLOTS group has made some progress and gained experience with pattern
recognition/matching... but it still has a long way to go to be useful
for very fine analysis (i.e. is there alcohol in my mixed drink, if so
how much).


On Wed, Jun 4, 2014 at 5:26 PM, Jebus Jones <raid517@hotmail.com> wrote:
>
>
> On Friday, 11 February 2011 06:34:39 UTC, Nathan McCorkle wrote:
>>
>> Dear DIY folk,
>>
>> I'm trying to lock down the requirements for an open-source
>> spectrometer, which I and colleagues will likely design in the coming
>> months if we can gauge that there is a decent market to make our
>> engineering time back with a few sales. At first glance we've
>> estimated that it will cost between $300-$700, . The price could be
>> flexible depending on customers desired configuration (e.g.
>> ethernet/no-ethernet, high-res version/low-res version, plastic
>> case/metal case, etc... basically anything that could be omitted from
>> the final design if it would lower cost and was desired)
>>
>> Our general specs:
>> fiber-coupled
>> 2048 or 3648 pixel array detector
>> USB and/or ethernet for data transfer
>>
>> What we'd like to hear from you:
>> If you were going to spend $500 on a spectrometer,what would you want
>> it to do/have
>>
>> Would kits be an option, or only assembled units? (or wired but not in
>> a box, for robot hobbyists looking to build a fire-fighting bot that
>> seeks out spectral signatures of burning materials!)
>>
>> How often would you want a reading? e.g.... Would it be really fast
>> (1-10 times per second) for looking at fast chemical reactions? Or
>> more like one-shot/once-in-a-while, for things with a stable spectrum
>> (getting DNA/RNA concentrations, cell culture density, etc)
>>
>> What kind of data connection would you want? USB and ethernet come to
>> my mind, but lots of connections are possible. The data link could be
>> a bottle neck if you want to stream readings quickly, so this ties in
>> with the previous question.
>>
>> Let me know what you think.
>> -Nathan
>>
>> --
>> Nathan McCorkle
>> Rochester Institute of Technology
>> College of Science, Biotechnology/Bioinformatics
>
>
> It will be fun to learn the basic principles, which hopefully I can build
> on. If what you are saying is accurate (and you make it sound pretty shitty,
> lol) it's a shame, because there simply isn't a decent cheap (and good)
> spectrometer out there for the DIYbio community. Your project sounds OK, but
> at $300+ (I will have to read back to get the exact number) it's still not
> chicken feed, particularly when you add up the costs of putting together a
> half decent home based lab. I guess you are trying to bring the barrier to
> entry down, which can only be a good thing.
>
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--
-Nathan

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