Introducing the Spectrino
The Open Hardware wave keeps rolling: MySpectral recently announced the Spectrino – an Arduino based spectrometer. It’s as barebones as spectrometers go, with the small enclosure containing a diffraction grating, CCD light sensor and an Arduino. Hooked up to a computer (PC, Mac, Linux) via a USB cable it is controlled and readout by a Processing based simple spectroscopy application. Given the open design, users will be able to adapt this or build their own applications for read out and analysis tailored exactly to their needs.
Obviously the Spectrino won’t be able to compete with OceanOptics or Oriel USB spectrometers in terms of speed or resolution (we’re talking 2 to 4 nm at 8-bit pixel depth here). But given at least my standard applications (Which LED was this? Which filter was that?), it’s an ideal addition to the lab bench. Especially given the expected significantly lower price tag.
Information is still a bit scarce and at the moment they only have a pre-order program running, but the idea is straight forward and they are already preparing to send a Spectrino into orbit, so we have good reasons to assume this is beyond vaporware.
Post by Christian Wilms.
Even though it is stated that it is an open hardware, apart from technical drawing given above nothing is OPEN at all. It is sad that technical drawings, printed circuit board (PCB) designs, parts list of Arduino spectrophotometer are available but i couldn’t access any of them at the web page given above. I e-mailed about some information no reply. Indeed it is a nice product …
Hello ,Its really not hard to duplicate the device ,look on You Tube spectroscope and arduino to see what others are doing, and check this, arduino with camera/LCD shield remove the infared filter from the camera and tape a piece of transparent grating over the lens and you have got a spectrometer without the pretty box and all the hipe also the software to use it is on the web……I have been doing this for years (building spectrometers) I analyze different types of metals found in electronics scrap…WCH