nanodrop spectrophotometer cheap build

[Huit]

https://www.takeitapart.com/guide/66 this guide shows the nanodrop - a useful but expensive tool in molecular bio - is actually built on quite cheap components (http://www.oceanoptics.com/products/usb2000.asp)

  

This is a cross post from http://www.reddit.com/r/biology/comments/21duri/nanodrop_spectrophotometers_are_just_a_fancy_box/

[Simon Quellen Field]

They didn't look all that cheap to me.

$1100 just for the Xenon lamp.

-----

Get a free science project every week! "http://scitoys.com/newsletter.html"

On Wed, Mar 26, 2014 at 12:57 AM, Huit <h8m...@gmail.com> wrote:

https://www.takeitapart.com/guide/66 this guide shows the nanodrop - a useful but expensive tool in molecular bio - is actually built on quite cheap components (http://www.oceanoptics.com/products/usb2000.asp)

  

This is a cross post from http://www.reddit.com/r/biology/comments/21duri/nanodrop_spectrophotometers_are_just_a_fancy_box/

--
-- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups DIYbio group. To post to this group, send email to diy...@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to diybio+un...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at https://groups.google.com/d/forum/diybio?hl=en
Learn more at www.diybio.org
---
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "DIYbio" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to diybio+un...@googlegroups.com.
To post to this group, send email to diy...@googlegroups.com.
Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/diybio.
To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/diybio/9db92ffc-3f02-4979-bfbb-ec7548519d38%40googlegroups.com.
For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.

[John Griessen]

On 03/26/2014 02:57 AM, Huit wrote:

nanodrop_spectrophotometers_are_just_a_fancy_box/

But it has a patent...on the linkage and spacing and surface the sample is on
that creates a volume measurement easily. "patented sample retention technology (surface tension)"

Wiping your sample into a tiny well etched in a glass slide with a squeegie on a stick
would go around that patent probably. A microfluidic chamber in the optical path
would go around that patent probably.

etc.
etc.

And then, when you get done designing and testing,
be sure to wrap it in a fancy box, or no scientists
will buy it!

Isn't that university machine shop look of the ND-1000
nice and experimenty?

That will hook the chemists.

Certain bio researchers would go for an organic looking "industrial designed"
microorganism X500 magnification look.

Others might be snagged by a case adorned with symbols and 3D shapes of
critical compounds found in base pairs...

[CodonAUG]

The nanodrop's arm also dynamically raises and lowers thus changing the path length based upon the samples concentration.

[John Griessen]

On 03/27/2014 11:25 AM, CodonAUG wrote:
> The nanodrop's arm also dynamically raises and lowers thus changing the path length based upon the samples concentration.

That's not as I understand it for some basic nanodrop models like the ND-1000.
The patent describes two heights
of the parallel optical faces above each other -- one to compress a drop and wet
both surfaces completely, the other height to pull that drop vertically a little and stop
at a fixed distance.

Since the spectrometer functions to "measure" concentration, how do you use concentration info
before you measure?

Or are you talking a bout a higher end model that makes one measurement,
and if concentration is found to be in a weak range, it sets up for the taller
drop stretched shape and takes a second measurement? That would still be about having fixed distances
for calibration -- not what I think of when I hear "dynamically raises and lowers"...