
OpenRAMAN – Low-cost, high-performance, open-source Raman spectrometer - philipkglass
http://www.open-raman.org/
======
patrickyeon
In case you're curious, the license on the downloadable drawings for the
"Starter Edition" is CC Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0

I mention this because it seems counter to what calling something "open
source" means to most people. On the main page of the project, they say "It is
strictly reserved for non-commercial applications" which... IANAL but I think
the license limits commercial use of the design, but not of the device created
with the design? Also NoDerivatives runs pretty counter the open source ethos
IMO.

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willis936
Afaik academic research isn’t considered commercial. I work in a lab that has
a RAMAN spectrometer.

~~~
Hello71
the problem with noncommercial licenses is that there is no commonly accepted
definition of commercial. a simple definition of "you receive money for your
work" excludes the vast majority of potential users. you get grant money?
that's commercial. you post videos on YouTube? that's commercial. and even if
it isn't, you may spend a significant amount of money defending a lawsuit. for
this reason, any competent lawyer will tell you to stay far away from NC
licensed material.

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owenversteeg
So the kit costs €2300 for all the parts.

Looking through the BOM, I feel there's a good bit of fat to be trimmed
actually. They splash €85 on a linear regulated power supply (you can get
something similar giving clean power for $20 in bulk), and the camera setup
(sensor, lens, related hardware) costs more than €600 in total. While there's
a good reason they picked the lens they did [0] I feel the sensor (might) be
replaceable by a new Raspberry Pi setup (also C-mount) - that'd save $400!

Then there's a lot of money (couple hundred) in fancy plastic/aluminum parts.
Manufacturing in higher quantities could save quite a lot there.

There's some stuff that is much trickier to push down in price much: laser
stuff/dichroic mirrors, filters, etc are tough.

Still, though, I feel that this has potential to eventually come down a good
bit in price, and I really look forward to seeing that eventually happen!

[0] [http://www.thepulsar.be/article/raman-imaging-lens-
upgrade/](http://www.thepulsar.be/article/raman-imaging-lens-upgrade/)

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godelski
For those looking to build their own, this still costs 2500€. For a lower
quality but cheaper option, check out Ben Krasnow's (Applied Science) video:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tRrOdKW06sk](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tRrOdKW06sk)

Caveat: this is much lower quality, but for a "home" kit, this is probably
better. The OpenRAMAN edition is much higher quality and aimed lowering the
bar to entry and making lab setups cheaper (Raman Spectroscopy can actually be
useful in a lot of settings).

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philipkglass
I saw that the person who developed this device is looking for academic
partners to take it further:
[https://www.sciencemadness.org/whisper/viewthread.php?tid=15...](https://www.sciencemadness.org/whisper/viewthread.php?tid=155245)

It seems very well developed. The open source RamanPI [1] got some traction
here a while ago. This looks like it may be more costly than RamanPI but it
also is more thoroughly developed.

[1]
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8395506](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8395506)

~~~
CamperBob2
The original RamanPI project looked interesting but doesn't seem to have gone
anywhere after several years, unless I'm mistaken. If there's any actual data
from it, I couldn't find it.

On the other hand, Luc's results are drop-dead awesome:
[http://www.thepulsar.be/article/some-diy-raman-
spectra/](http://www.thepulsar.be/article/some-diy-raman-spectra/)

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atemerev
I love the raise of open source / hobbyist experimental science. I have two
used qPCR machines at home (which I bought for $450), and I have established
relationships with Sigma-Aldrich and other consumables providers, so I now can
e.g. run my own qPCR tests for SARS-CoV-2 RNA presence, as well as many other
experiments.

~~~
100ideas
What’s your approach for getting covid19 template dna for the positive control
reaction?

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atemerev
Just bought the positive control RNA template, it is included in most kits.

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nullc
There are some quite inexpensive 530nm OPSL lasers available now, I wonder if
the improved frequency stability would reduce the spectral broadening in these
results?

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alpineidyll3
It'd be really fun to race Nmr/MassSpec/Ir/Raman teams to see who can make a
cheaper home gamer analysis tool.

My money would be on mass spec, although it requires high voltage and vacuum.
Back in my old university days Zbigniew Gasnaya made a home gamer mass spec
that worked fine for what looked to be about 300$ in today's parts

3 high DC voltage plates, a harbor freight vacuum, an amp...

~~~
CamperBob2
Ben Krasnow took some steps in that direction:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nIKhUizkXxA](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nIKhUizkXxA)

As with his Raman setup, there were some good questions raised in the comments
about whether he really saw the effect in question or just got lucky with
plausible-appearing artifacts. It's hard to assess validity from the presented
results alone, which is unfortunately common in Ben's videos. In the Raman
video, he didn't test anything but a single styrofoam cup, and in the mass-
spec video he didn't do the obvious baseline run with a clean filament.

Ben's channel is one of those rare ones where the comments are worth reading.
You can really see how easy it is for a scientist to inadvertently fool
themselves and others. I often end up yelling at the screen, but it's still my
favorite YouTube channel of all time.

~~~
alpineidyll3
I'm a huge fan of Ben's. In all honesty Zbignew was definitely more talented
at munging together homebrew instruments. But who could compete with that old
timey eastern bloc science curriculum ;).

I think Ben's misused over there at google. He should be designing the
national high school science lab curriculum.

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jzer0cool
What are some uses for this? This is not my field so any types of experiments
is nice that would help understand some general use cases. The last time I
used one of these was for my physics "optics" lab. If I recall correctly, we
used a grater of some sort which filtered out the light wavelengths which was
displayed. It was so long ago, I can't recall the lab project.

~~~
GiuseppaAcciaio
I used one extensively to map residual stresses in sintered ceramics

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miguelrochefort
Can this be used to identify molecules and act as some kind of Tricorder?

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philipkglass
Yes, it can be used to identify molecules. Here is an example application:

[http://www.open-raman.org/quantifying-methanol-in-ethanol-
us...](http://www.open-raman.org/quantifying-methanol-in-ethanol-using-raman-
spectroscopy/)

It can be used to detect and quantify methanol in ethanol. This is interesting
because ethanol is (relatively) safe to drink, while methanol is metabolized
to poisonous compounds when ingested. Methanol and ethanol look the same and
have nearly identical densities. The odor and taste of methanol are
distinguishable from ethanol only at high concentrations. Raman spectroscopy
is one way to distinguish a dangerously adulterated alcoholic beverage from a
safe one.

You do need to put a sample of the substance to be tested in the machine,
though. You can't point the machine at a container in front of you and get a
reading. Also, Raman spectroscopy is suitable for distinguishing many but not
all substances. The Tricorder's capabilities for universal remote analysis are
superior if fictional.

~~~
miguelrochefort
How small can a Raman spectrometer, or its alternatives get?

The only consumer product I know that resembles this is the SCiO:
[https://www.consumerphysics.com/scio-for-
consumers/](https://www.consumerphysics.com/scio-for-consumers/)

~~~
analog31
I've been involved in designing optical instrumentation. There's a challenge
with miniaturizing optics, which is that light obeys an "optical invariant,"
which limits the area and solid angle subtending a light beam. In practice it
means that as optics get smaller, it gets harder to maintain signal-to-noise
and spectral resolution, which affect the ability to distinguish chemicals
with similar spectra, chemicals at low concentration, and dirty samples.

Not everything is so constrained. Lasers can get smaller. Certainly
electronics. As those things get more efficient, the batteries can get
smaller.

Now, it all depends on what you're trying to measure. And there are cases
where the chemicals themselves cooperate with you in some way. For this
reason, single purpose instruments can often be quite small. An example is the
finger cuff for blood oxygen.

If you search for mini- or micro-spectrometer, you'll find that these things
are all over the place. Many of them demonstrate one interesting application
with great fanfare, that is perpetually almost sensitive enough for practical
use.

