Yes, it's a little confusing - that's actually one of the hurdles is to quickly and easily explain what this does, and how it works (the how it works part is toughest I think). You can read about plant fluorescence (one of the main measurements we're interested) here - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chlorophyll_fluorescence .

So that's not a cuvette, it's a light guide (it's actually just a piece of 3/8'' acrylic cut small and polished on the end). The light guide directs light from the LEDs to the sample, and then back from the sample to the detector. In the next few posts I'll try to get some clearer 3D pictures and explanation of how it works. The best place to get more info for now is from the website and our project tracking page on opendesignengine.net - https://opendesignengine.net/projects/photosynq/documents .

I'd love to try to get the measurement in other instruments, or pull more sensors into our instrument. Some measurements that we'd like to take (like absorbance) require both specific components and pretty tight tolerances. But other measurements, like fluorescence, may be able to more easily be attached to other instruments.

I LOVE the spectral workbench software. Our goal is to connect our instrument to a cell phone, and the put all of the data in a database and display it similar to what you've done. We'd love to be able to share data in a similar way - if you've got any thoughts on ways to do that I'd love to hear it!

In the next few weeks, we'll have a truly functional handheld unit which communicates through Serial and we can start getting some data, and I'll work on better explaations Hopefully that'll help, but if there's any way to collaborate we're all about it!

Greg