Get Clear Insights Into Cloudy Water With The Open Colorimeter

October 24, 2022 by Abe Connelly 4 Comments

A basic scientific tool for chemistry and biology is a colorimeter device used to measure which wavelengths of light a particular sample solution absorbs. Some applications of colorimeters are measuring pH or chlorine levels, measuring pollutants, such as oil or pesticides, and, in some cases, can even be used to measure RNA/DNA concentrations. Even most washing machines today have a specialized colorimeter sensor, of sorts, to measure turbidity (cloudiness) to provide feedback on the cleaning process. To help in building your home scientific lab, [IORodeo] has released an Open Colorimeter.

The Open Colorimeter is a self-contained device that accepts cuvettes filled with liquids for testing. The basic structure is an LED mounted onto a board that shines through the cuvette filled with a sample that is then measured at the other end by a TSL2591 color sensor. The Open Colorimeter has separate specialized LED boards for a range of wavelengths from 470nm to 630nm and incorporates a PyBadge that serves as the main microcontroller, as well as display and input.

[IORodeo] has done extensive documentation on the assembly, usage, and testing of the device. They have also provided protocols for the measurement of Ammonia, Nitrate, Nitrite, and Phosphates in addition to providing resources for absorption profiles of many other substances. All files relating to the 3D enclosure, firmware source code, schematics and Gerbers are provided under an open source hardware compatible license. For those not wanting to build it themselves, [IORodeo] is offering them for sale.

This isn’t the first time we’ve featured colorimeters, with some building a DIY version and others using it in a Tricorder project. The Open Colorimeter is a nice addition to this list and is ready for hacking and extending!

Classic Colorimeter Clone Calibrates Cuvettes’ Contents

December 6, 2021 by Robin Kearey 13 Comments

For anyone dabbling in home chemistry, having access to accurate measurement equipment can mean the difference between success and failure. But with many instruments expensive and hard to find, what’s a home chemist to do? Build their own equipment, naturally. [Abizar] went ahead and built himself a colorimeter out of wood and spare electronic components.

A colorimeter (in a chemistry context) is an instrument that determines the concentration of a solution by measuring how much light of a certain wavelength is absorbed. [Abizar]’s design was inspired by the classic Klett-Summerson colorimeter from the 1950s, which uses a light bulb and color filters to select a wavelength, plus a photoresistor to measure the amount of light absorbed by the sample. Of course, a more modern solution would be to use LEDs of various colors, which is exactly what [Abizar] did, although he did give it a retro touch by using an analog meter as the readout device.

The body of the colorimeter is made from laser-cut pieces of wood, which form a rigid enclosure when stacked together. The color wheel holds eleven different LEDs and is made with a clever ratchet mechanism to keep it aligned to the cuvette, as well as a sliding contact to drive current into the selected LED. All parts are painted black to prevent stray reflections inside the instrument, but also make it look cool enough to fit in any evil genius’s lab. In the video embedded below, [Abizar] demonstrates the instrument and shows how it was put together.

While we haven’t seen anyone make their own colorimeter before, we have seen DIY spectrophotometers (which measure the entire absorption spectrum of a solution) and even building blocks to make a complete biochemistry lab.

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