This is the latest version of Public Lab's DIY Desktop Spectrometry Kit -- the Lego Spectrometer. It addresses issues of rigidity, sourcing, modularity, and image quality over previous versions.

We've been making and distributing Do-It-Yourself spectrometers since 2011, and have been through 4 major kit versions and hundreds of different community contributed modifications, new versions, changes, and more.

Get a kit

This is an open source kit, so you can just build your own -- but to order parts for a kit, visit the Public Lab Store:

Design goals

Over the years, we've identified a few really critical improvements that have been tough to solve:

rigidity

easy to source parts

modularity - working together

image quality

Our mission is to make it easier, cheaper, and more accessible to do environmental monitoring, and to do that as an open source, collaborative community. And of course part of that is cost -- while people build upon our kits with more expensive options and upgrades, we want the basic kit to be extremely affordable.

Quick start

Questions

Building your Lego Spectrometer

Spectrometry activities

Spectrometer calibration

Tinkercad model, below

Parts

3D models

Tinkercad: https://tinkercad.com/things/43IqCTHE7Iz

Thingiverse: https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:2711528

3D brick models

Lots of great brick models are available here: https://printabrick.org/ and on http://thingiverse.com

assorted standard bricks: https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:2626413

holey bricks: https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:1095326

sloped brick: https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:527185

corner L brick: https://printabrick.org/bricks/2357

brick w/ peg: https://printabrick.org/bricks/2458 (I used this instead of a 1x2 hole brick + a friction peg, because I couldn't find a model for the brick)

Brick dimensions are nicely described in this diagram from Wikipedia:

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Lego_dimensions.svg