Spectrometry
activity:spectrometry

The Public Lab spectrometry project is an open source community effort to develop low-cost spectrometers for a range of purposes. All open spectrometry hardware and software efforts are welcome here! **Join in by:** * Learning [what spectrometry is](#Whats+spectrometry) * Reading about goals and [asking great questions](#Frequently+Asked+Questions) * Building a basic spectrometer using [one of our starter kits](#Starter+Kits) * Trying (and critiquing) our [community-made how-to guides](#Activities) and posting your own * Building on others’ work; hack and remix the kits to refine and expand them * [Share your upgrades](#Upgrades) for others to try -- and perhaps for inclusion in an upcoming starter kit release or add-on kit **** ## Starter Kits Public Lab’s Kits initiative offers several starter kits, including many of the basic components, and instructions for constructing a basic visible light spectrometer. The point of the kits is to provide a shared reference design for building experimental setups onto. Lego Spectrometer Kit Our most recent kit, incorporating community improvements while balancing low cost and ease of construction. Choose between webcam and Raspberry Pi camera versions and build attachments width standard Lego connectors. Build one Buy one Papercraft Spectrometry Intro Kit A $9 paper spectrometer which you can attach to a smartphone or webcam. It’s made of paper to reduce cost and complexity, and is mainly intended as an “introductory” or educational kit. The flat design can be printed on a laser printer or photocopied to make more. Build one Buy one **** ## Activities This is a list of community-generated guides for specific applications using your spectrometry setup (either a [starter kit](#Starter+Kits) or a [modded design](#Upgrades)). These [activities can be categorized](https://publiclab.org/wiki/activity-categories), and some may be more reproduced -- or reproducible -- than others. Try them out to build your skills, and help improve them by leaving comments. Together, we can repeat and refine the activities into experiments. > **Note:** If you are working on an **urgent issue** such as a threat to your or someone else’s health, please know that these techniques may not be ready for your use; it's possible that they never will be. [Read more here](/notes/gretchengehrke/09-29-2016/common-low-cost-technique-limitations) ### Activity grid [activities:spectrometry] **** ## Upgrades Have you added to your starter kit, improved it, or redesigned it? Show others how to take it to the next level by posting a build guide here: [upgrades:spectrometry] Add your upgrade guide here Request or propose an upgrade _Mods should include a parts list and a step-by-step construction guide with photo documentation. See an example._ **** ## Challenges We're working to refine and improve DIY spectrometry on a number of fronts; here, take a look at the leading challenges we're hoping to solve, and post your own. For now, we're using the Q&A feature, so just click "Ask a question" to post your own challenge. Be sure to add: * constraints: expense, complexity * goals: performance, use cases [questions:spectrometry-challenge] **** ## Builds There’s a lot going on in open source spectrometry -- if you’ve developed another open source design you’d like to show others how to construct, post it here! * [RamanPi](https://hackaday.io/project/1279-ramanpi-raman-spectrometer) * [Hackteria “drop”-style spectrometers](https://publiclab.org/notes/gaudi/04-03-2014/diy-micro-volume-spectrophotometer) / [DIY NanoDrop on Hackteria.org](http://hackteria.org/wiki/index.php/DIY_NanoDrop) * _Add yours here_ ##What's spectrometry? Colored light is often a blend of different colors. A spectrometer is a device which splits those colors apart, like a prism, and measures the strength of each color. A typical output of a spectrometer looks like this spectrum of the daytime sky, with the actual light spectrum at the top and the graph of wavelength (horizontal axis, in nanometers of wavelength) and intensity (vertical axis) below: [![sky.png](https://i.publiclab.org/system/images/photos/000/005/455/original/sky.png)](https://spectralworkbench.org/analyze/spectrum/19882) > Needed: overview of spectra, calibration, units, comparison, and fluorescence/absorption. Please edit this page or link to a resource, potentially [the Wikipedia page](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spectroscopy), although that's quite full of technical jargon. ## Software Spectral data can be analyzed with https://spectralworkbench.org to create spectra plots, find centers of emissions plots, and find similar spectra. Data also can be exported in various formats (JSON, CSV, XML) for further analysis and visualization. ## How does this compare to a lab instrument? The [Desktop Spectrometry Starter Kit](/wiki/desktop-spectrometry-kit-3-0) is only one part in an experimental setup, and the following shows where it fits in an overall diagram of a lab spectrometric setup: [![tmp_31873-IMG_20161027_101601_2-79757779.jpg](https://publiclab.org/system/images/photos/000/018/635/large/tmp_31873-IMG_20161027_101601_2-79757779.jpg)](https://publiclab.org/system/images/photos/000/018/635/original/tmp_31873-IMG_20161027_101601_2-79757779.jpg) [![tmp_31873-IMG_20161027_095939_2-108076392.jpg](https://publiclab.org/system/images/photos/000/018/636/large/tmp_31873-IMG_20161027_095939_2-108076392.jpg)](https://publiclab.org/system/images/photos/000/018/636/original/tmp_31873-IMG_20161027_095939_2-108076392.jpg) There are many, many different types of spectrometry and spectrometers -- many don’t even measure light. Even among those that do, some detect light in the ultraviolet range, and others in the infrared range of light. The range of Public Lab spectrometers depends on the range of the commercially available cameras we attach them to (~400-700 nanometer wavelengths). A commercially available product with a slightly wider range (from 335 to 1000 nanometers) is [available from Cole Parmer](http://www.coleparmer.com/Product/Cole_Parmer_Visible_spectrophotometer_335_to_1000_nm_wavelength_range_analog_output/UX-83055-10). **** ## Frequently Asked Questions [questions:spectrometry] Note our previous Frequently Asked Questions page, which [can be found here »](/wiki/spectrometer-faq) -- please help port these into the new system, here!...


Author Comment Last activity Moderation
chunbr "I made this! The print took about 36 hours and Amazon sells $12 diffraction slides. The .stl files aren't scaled properly when imported to Cura, bu..." | Read more » about 5 years ago
rahamath_prizm " So good to know it got identified soon. passive income " | Read more » over 5 years ago
straylight " thanks solaris, yes, the yeast, like the sugar, has bolted. An analytical test for red and white wine, excellent, we are making progress :) Agre..." | Read more » over 5 years ago
solaria " Thanks Stray'. Actually, the 0.06 A for the wine was at 5 cm path. Divide by 5 to get 1 cm path for comparison. If yeast/fermentation was cont..." | Read more » over 5 years ago
straylight " solaria, great work, much kudos deserved. A rigorous experiment. Like david_uwi, I wondered at why sucrose is absorbing visible light (VL) at all..." | Read more » over 5 years ago
solaria " Well, the sucrose absorbance is very low, but it's not zero. See Sucrose Absorbance. Since the data is 'clean' and the calculations match expec..." | Read more » over 5 years ago
david_uwi " Problem I have is that sucrose solution looks colorless so does not absorb visible light. I feel that the changes in absorbance that you are seein..." | Read more » over 5 years ago
solaria "Here’s my try at this experiment. Basically, Yes, you can detect added sugar in wine, but it’s a very small change, and requires an accurate basel..." | Read more » over 5 years ago
cfastie "Don't forget that when doing absorption spectroscopy: The two spectra (photos of the reference and the sample) must be taken with the same camera..." | Read more » over 5 years ago
MaggPi "Hi, Not sure if this is a direct match with your project but I can share some of my work on real time spectrum processing. This video shows how ..." | Read more » over 5 years ago
jaksch "Hi Warren, thanks for the link. I peeked a little bit into it already, but I don't speak JS, so it's a bit difficult for me not to get lost. I alre..." | Read more » over 5 years ago
jywarren "This looks awesome. Just a quick note that this repository can do the extraction of cross section locally: https://github.com/publiclab/spectral-w..." | Read more » over 5 years ago
34zhijian "Hi, how does one download the data in the appendix? Thanks! " | Read more » almost 6 years ago
TakeshiMatsumoto "Hi @warren, thanks for your comment. As you can see these photos, it is our original. We have only information about liner CCD by Toshiba. It is po..." | Read more » almost 6 years ago
warren "This is amazing!!! Very cool. Do you have more information on the linear CCD setup? How did you read data from it? " | Read more » almost 6 years ago
TakeshiMatsumoto "Hi @david_uwi, Thanks for your advise. Your comment is right. We did not perform alignment at all in this example, so I would like to report the re..." | Read more » almost 6 years ago
david_uwi "There's something strange about your "spectrum" it seems to run green,yellow,pink,blue,green. Seems like there are several overlapping color patter..." | Read more » almost 6 years ago
briandegger "Great article. Its also good to know about Renekabio(based in US and Indonesia ftw) and their set of assays. Is this the detection kit you used? h..." | Read more » about 6 years ago
warren "Here's a convenient page to print a black square on the back! https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1ATMBoR9voChWq-a4fTnyQvniVj2sEyn-ZookA3K-Uts/..." | Read more » about 6 years ago
gretchengehrke "Here's another resource for soil sampling procedures: https://archive.epa.gov/region9/toxic/web/pdf/ee-soilsampling-sop-env-3-13.pdf. " | Read more » about 6 years ago
warren "Hi! Hope you're well -- we just announced this and I think it could be super awesome to pair up with your attachments! https://publiclab.org/notes/..." | Read more » over 6 years ago
warren "Wow, so do you insert an LED instead of the laser into some of your light sources? How do you power them or align them -- can you show some more ph..." | Read more » over 6 years ago
zengirl2 "Yes, this seems to be an easy solution :) " | Read more » over 6 years ago
warren "That's so awesome, @sanchittechnogeek -- did it go smoothly for you? any trouble, or improvements you made? " | Read more » over 6 years ago