Spectrometry
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
warren "I'd love to see maybe a grid of comparison on different settings! This was an interesting example of that: https://publiclab.org/notes/warren/09-1..." | Read more » about 6 years ago
warren "Sorry i forget, but is there a possibility of entering a token on the Pi and having the spectra upload to http://SpectralWorkbench.org ? " | Read more » about 6 years ago
warren "I also recently found an old monitor i'm going to try this with :-) " | Read more » about 6 years ago
warren "How's this going, @maggpi? " | Read more » about 6 years ago
warren "Please post some pictures when you finish! Awesome! " | Read more » about 6 years ago
Bronwen "Hi @Mat , thanks for checking in! There are some helpful images on the product page in the store (also below), and you can find lots of other how-..." | Read more » about 6 years ago
Ag8n "Well, exactly what approach are you thinking of? Let's see if the already tried can be eliminated and maybe make it easier to make progress. " | Read more » about 6 years ago
mintymac "Im thinking that this could be possible using good reference data and good samples along with machine learning. I could be delusional but it's wor..." | Read more » about 6 years ago
cedarlodge "The camera I ended up using was the camera for pi zero with infra-red filter (https://shop.pimoroni.com/products/raspberry-pi-zero-camera-module). ..." | Read more » about 6 years ago
MaggPi "Thx for sharing this and I would like to run the code (as soon as I build the spectrometer). Two questions: 1)Are you using a Pi v1 visible camer..." | Read more » about 6 years ago
liz "WOw @MaggPi, this is really important work! I'm leaving this link by @haines241 as a comment VS a direct answer because it has an interesting exper..." | Read more » about 6 years ago
asnow "Thank you @warren ! " | Read more » about 6 years ago
warren "@asnow - here's some for 0.09mm ! spectrometer-slits-letter-0.09.pdf spectrometer-slits-letter-0.09.svg " | Read more » about 6 years ago
warren "Hi, @MoparWade, I believe @amanda followed up on this and sent a cable -- sorry -- this was an oversight. They went out a few days ago -- sorry, we..." | Read more » about 6 years ago
Ag8n "Thanks! Give me a couple of days and I'll email you a more detailed description. The help is appreciated! " | Read more » about 6 years ago
stevie "Woah interesting question! can you give me some context or background for it? I'll volunteer to do some hunting for someone who can help answer :) " | Read more » about 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 » about 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 » about 6 years ago
warren "And here are the ones we've reformatted for efficient printing at letter size! spectrometer-slits-letter-0.18.pdf spectrometer-slits-letter-0.18..." | Read more » about 6 years ago
Ag8n "A partial answer. Each block of analyzers is heated to 37.0 C . They do not use a spectrometer. Instead, each cell in the analyzers has a led (a..." | Read more » about 6 years ago
Bronwen "Hi @adamsanta, yes! We do ship some tape and a DVD with the lego kit. " | Read more » about 6 years ago
stoft "Pollution comes in many forms and many of the worst contaminants will not alter the appearance so visible light spectrometers (i.e. PLab types) wil..." | Read more » about 6 years ago
Ag8n "We always went with the longest path length. The visual test was done with 50 cm color comparison tubes. Very long for visual. Maybe you could d..." | Read more » about 6 years ago
amirberAgain "Be careful! light in the 450-480nm range (royal blue) is dangerous to unprotected eyes! 430 is not as bad but be aware! http://www.cree.com/led-com..." | Read more » about 6 years ago