Print, Build and Use Your Own LED Photometer

Low cost instrumentation for at Home or In Lab Experiments for Chemistry and Biology Laboratories

These are instructions and 3D print files to construct a visible photometer using low-cost electronics for a cost of approximately $10, which includes $6.50 for a multimeter. The documents below have been written so you can “cut and paste” the procedure and images directly into just about any lab where one wavelength (range of about 10 nm) is used to determine concentration or an absorptivity value. A list of all the materials needed and links to low-cost options are also provided. This general instrument design has been highlighted in a soon to be published review by Kovarik, Clapis and Romano-Pringle on student-built spectrometer projects: https://dx.doi.org/10.1021/acs.jchemed.0c00404 .

The author of this post is:

Tom Spudich

I have 20 years of experience in Higher Education and a huge advocate of research in education. I have also spent time involved in the entrepreneur arena in the St. Louis area where I co-own Spectrum Perception, LLC, and we are attempting to manufacture and sell a micropipette with a spectrophotometer built into the device.

See author's posts