Instructions | CubeRaman: 3D-Printed Raman Spectroscopy

11
Step 11 — Known Limitations & Ideas for Improvement
- Resolution is bottlenecked by the spectrometer's 100 µm slit; a narrower slit or a better spectrometer is the single biggest upgrade.
- Stray light suppression inside the cube can still be improved (better sealing, more aggressive baffling).
- The current kinematics are magnet-held but not truly preloaded or kinematically constrained — the next iteration addresses this, becoming more compact and rugged, CNC-milled from aluminum for rigidity.
- Beam diameter, pointing stability, and residual IR leakage of the cheap laser module all show up in the data — the bandpass filter is "optional" only on paper.

hpux735 wrote 07/11/2026 at 00:32

Hi! I'm very interested in this project, and I have a Ocean Optics USB2000+ spectrometer (which I think has similar specs to yours). Do you have a guess for how long the aluminum cube will take to design? I'm a big of an optics noob (I've messed with lasers some, but not this power level), and I think it would make me slightly more comfortable to have a more robust core to the project. Also, I wonder if it's possible to put it inside another enclosure to further protect against stray laser light while it's assembled and in use?

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Jacob Busshart wrote 07/11/2026 at 14:39

Hi there! Thanks for reaching out. The USB2000+ should be well suited, if not better, I believe. I hope I can pick up the more capable CNC next weekend and then get somewhat accustomed to it. The aluminium version will be an almost entirely different architecture - so not a cube. Realistically it will be up in 3+ weeks, though you can reach me via e-mail (Jacob@Busshart.de), then I could send you the files before documenting everything properly to showcase on here. And sure, the more enclosure the better broadly speaking :p

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CubeRaman: 3D-Printed Raman Spectroscopy

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