I wanted to talk a little about why I started this project and how it has evolved into something unexpected in such a short time. I bought this kit out of trying to help a friend out who had a sample that they wanted tested to find out what it was (they really just didn't want to spend about 900.00 to take it to a lab and test it, but hey, what are friends for!)
So anyways, I said well let me see what I can come up with and I saw this spectrometer kit and said hey I bet I could take that kit and hype it up to analyze this stuff and see what it is, well it was ruff waters at first, since I had NO experience with spectrometry, only engineering and chemistry, but I never give up and I just kept studying and tinkering and modifying until walla, Plab 2.5 (build 3.0.1 was born!)
I did find out what the sample was (Salicyclic acid with an anti-biotic mixed in...it was in a container where it should not have been...hummm.)
I am getting a new cmos sensor next week, so I'll document that and post up the results, it's a far superior camera module and has better sensitivity, plus I upgraded the DVD design to be even more stable so that will be another great improvement.
The biggest obstacle I have had to overcome to get quality results is stability and alignment of the hardware is very critical!!
Looking good my friend, way beyond me but it all looks great :-)