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The Chemical Educator
ISSN: 1430-4171 (electronic version)
Abstract Volume 27
(2022) pp 77-81
An Open Platform Microcontroller-based Visible Spectrometer
Marc Hill, Logan A. Lewis and Eugene T. Smith*
Wilkes Honors College-Florida Atlantic University, Jupiter, FL 33458, esmith@fau.edu
Received July 19, 2021. Accepted September 16, 2021.
Published: 19 November 2022
Abstract. This exercise encompasses the construction and testing of a microcontroller-based visible spectrometer. Instructors or students with little experience in this technology are able to produce a working visible spectrometer without investing significant time or money. The spectrometer consists of an LED source, collimating lens, slit, transmission grating, and optical sensor, housed in a 3-D printed optical bench and a modified commercially available ABS enclosure. A mbed microcontroller, attached to a simple printed circuit board (PCB), is used to collect data from a surface mounted optical sensor. After assembly, students use the spectrometer connected to a laptop computer to record visible spectra in real-time directly into an Excel spreadsheet. The microcontroller runs a C++ program that is loaded directly into flash memory, and the spreadsheet utilizes a program written in Excel's built-in programming language (VBA). Both programs are open source. The spectrometer was tested with several common laboratory exercises, and species concentrations were similar to those obtained by commercial spectrometers. The lab is appropriate for quantitative analysis, instrumental methods, biochemistry or possibly a general chemistry course.
Key Words: KW Laboratories and Demonstrations;,Visible spectrometer
onding author. (E-mail: esmith@fau.edu)
Article in PDF format(378KB) HTML
Supplemental Material. A zip file is available for download containing the following files:
(a) Instructor notes/student handout
(b) Excel templates (Vis-v100.xlsm and Vis-AlphaLab.xlsm)
(c) C++ compiled program (Vis-v100-LPC 1768.bin)
(d) C++ program text (Vis-v100-LPC 1768.txt)
(e) PCB Eagle files (Vis-v100.brd and Vis-v100.sch).
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