Spectrometer-resurrector: A Drop-in Replacement “Brain” to Liberate and Modernize Affordable Out-Dated Spectrophotometers

Megan Zimroth

Spectrometer-resurrector: A Drop-in Replacement “Brain” to Liberate and Modernize Affordable Out-Dated Spectrophotometers

Counter Culture Labs

AWARD AMOUNT

2000 USD

Read Proposal
Map loading…

Counter Culture Labs is an open science community lab designed to demystify and democratize biotechnology by putting tools in the hands of those who want to explore, innovate and learn to advance scientific literacy. The project included Counter Culture Labs, Dinacon, Dreamscape Academy and Sudo Room and was part of Sudo Rooms Tuesday hacker events as an opportunity for collaboration and education. As part of the project’s collaboration with Dreamscape Academy, project participants used the resurrector to assist in training people from a variety of skill levels in the use of the device and other donated equipment. 

The spectrometer-resurrector aims to be an open replacement for the control circuitry and software for off-the-shelf older generation spectrophotometers that are cheaply available second hand. Many of these units have excellent optics and electro-mechanics but contain outdated control/interface electronics and software. Currently only a single Shimadzu HPLC spectrometer is supported, this was chosen because its construction is representative of a class of affordable pre-DADS spectrometers, and because it frequently pops up on ebay for less than $200.

The project aimed to build an affordable (< $50) open hardware module to act as a drop-in replacement for the Shimadzu control circuitry. The spectrometer-resurrector project successfully completed all of its goals. All source code, schematics and documentation are available for anyone at GitHub. The hardware uses an ESP32 with a control and logging GUI served up as a web interface by the ESP32. The main circuitboard currently includes a stepper motor controller for adjusting the wavelength and a split +/- 12 V supply for powering analog photodetector circuitry. In addition, a web-based open-source GUI accessible via Wi-Fi for control and logging was developed.

The spectrometer resurrector project is part of a bigger vision. The project team has a longer-term dream to also control other devices such as liquid chromatography pumps, mixers, valves, etc. They aim to make it easy to build full-LC or HPLC systems out of mismatched second-hand modules. 

Another future direction for this project is an open opto-mechanical design such that the need for the off-the-shelf hardware is fully eliminated.

Reference Number: CDF-102

Documentation

Event Media

Forum Posts