I'm sure that a few of our regular viewers will be surprised to see that I now have a co-host for this channel, but I do want to thank Max for his amazing contribution to this tiny, non-monetized channel.

Hello everyone! I'm Max, one of your co-hosts, and I'm thrilled to be here with you all. We're excited to share some interesting content with you - from laughs and learning to complete annihilation of all organic life on earth by my co-host Posh Arthur.

It's nice to see fluorescent lamp (i.e. argon and mercury) spectral lines. I remember them from my time in high school (ca. 1980) where I volunteered to repair a physics classroom spectroscope. It had a 60 degree prism, two optical tubes at adjustable angles, and was just missing an eyepiece, which I substituted by fitting an objective lens from my 8mm film camera. It was basically the original Bunsen's design from ca. 1900. Good resolution, as long as the slit was kept narrow enough. I could clearly see the double line of sodium, as well as Fraunhofer dark equivalent in sunlight. Compared to this, the resolution of the two spectrometers reviewed leaves a lot to be desired, especially the small one. I believe TLM-2 design relies on interpolation to such a degree that its results are somewhat misleading. It likely shows any number of close lines as if they were one, as long as they fall on the same pair of pixels of the light sensor. In other words, it will calculate a weighted average of wavelength and add up intensity. So the high accuracy for a sparse spectrum probably belies much lower resolution of a busy one. Try it using a neon lamp, which has a lot of lines close together in the orange-red part of the spectrum. It will likely not resolve very many of them.

Woah, I had to check to be sure this was the channel I thought it was. I'm all for trying new styles and approaches. Glad 'Posh' Arthur wasn't fired. His dry humor is important.

Non-crippled software would be an improvement. An SDK would be even better.

I no longer have a commercial need. But my scientific mind wants one to be added to the selection of it it can be measured I want to be able to measure it. As a former repair technician in the analog days of video and early digital cameras I had to have a calibrated light of a known color temperature. The cheapest way was to use 12V halogen downlights and run them at 14.8V where they only had a short but useful life.

Eagerly awaiting part 2. More eagerly awaiting the availability of the product in an online shop.

PEACHES and a Spectrometer Review are two things I never in my life assumed would be together!

If this is just a COM port, surely you can just write translation layer and use something like ArgyllCMS. Or whatever software to your liking. Edit: Would have liked to see the insides. But I see that coming. Looks like another camera sensor. Would have thought a linear scanner CCD as better, but I guess optics would need to much better then as well as a size increase. Please keep finding these gems. Edit2: Would you mind testing these for color calibration (I see their software does do something for that with xy coords)?

In the green laser the 808 nm is the actual LED wavelength. The light gets converted to 1064 nm (fluorescence) in a Nd:YAG crystal, and after that passes through KTP crystal which doubles the frequency to 532 nm.

lol, I can’t believe anyone else has that Peaches song. I used to listen to it while coding, about 20 years ago - and it still makes me smile.

Looking forward to 2nd video. Would purchase a few units if software was fixed. Rescaling window size, remembering parameters, and outputting CSV data are obvious must. Thank you.

We NEED people like you to evaluate the few US electronic products as well as EU products to see if feedback can help improve their products too.

I'd just listen in on the com port, figure out the protocol, and generate the CSV with reverse engineered software. I doubt it's that hard to do.

Ah ! another great video from Project 326 at last! You my friend are going places! really enjoy your videos! Salute!

This video is quite a surprise. Well done! I was considering ordering the Little Garden device through a third party company but I'll wait until part 2 of the video is released and draw my conclusions then.

Great review and cool device! Looking forward to seeing the second part! I'd suggest that non-proprietary parts of the user interface software be open source. The difficult parts are the hardware and any secret sauce they have for calibration and signal processing. The UI parts where the processed output data is displayed should be open so users can customize it or integrate it with their own tools. This would also allow users to contribute features and bug fixes back to the official UI project, improving the product for everyone.

Amazing little device, thank you for bringing it to us. Can't wait for part 2

I want to get one as well. Having a CSV data output would be great as well because then we can run in through other applications or just save it in a database for future reference and calibration.

Great thingy. I hope one day someone makes it available on Aliexpress, or on other international site.

Correction @<a href="#" class="seekto" data-time="1200">20:00</a>, the green laser pointer uses an 808nm pump diode to drive an Nd:YAG medium that outputs 1024nm... you may see residual emissions in both of these underlying frequencies, though the KTP only doubles the 1024nm source light.

I'm looking forward to the second part. For sure I am interested in the device, as long as the manufacturer does not intentionally cripple functions just to charge more without justifiable costs - I've given up on FLIR thermal imagers beacause of such behavior. One more question that was not raised in the video: why use an USB mini-B connector in 2024?

The dots look like a super Bayer filter.

Wow, this is a great new format. Love the brothel scene😂 That little spectrometer looks good too, shame about the bugs you identified. They would be easily fixed as you mentioned. Be nice to have better resolution, but I suspect that may be a physical hurdle to overcome without adding an FFA (Fudge Factor Algorithm). Well done for a best ever video👍

I built a crappy version of the little garden based on your tear down from the last video actually. I wanted to get one badly, but figured that it was too difficult so I tried to pull it off. I didn't use the monochrome camera, as I could find one (recently I got one, but haven't done anything with it), that said its quite limited, but was super fun to make. I love these videos, they make you think about products.

Some of your extra peaks are artifacts of the way these spectrometer works and not actually in the light source. You can confirm this with some filters.

Nice device. It would be nice to have a machine readable export format. And it would be nice to have higher precision of the small device combined with the finer resolution of the bigger one.

This channel going to blow up.

Really looking forward to part 2, and ready to order one to satisfy my curious-yet-poor self! Amazing video!

Yes we need a data export file, that is if you are trying to promote people to uses this in applications other than pretty pictures. That said, since i get to say something that might help in development, could you please cut the music loop, to hear the same thing over and over really made it hard to get to the end of the video and i certainly will have issue with part 2. Otherwise, nice.

It just uses serial port? That's cool! It sucks that it doesn't have "export to CSV" but I'd love to try to "reverse-engineer" the communication.

great. love the style. love the color names.

Like you said, CSV export is pretty important. The other thing I'd like to see is the software being open source so there are no questions about its safety.

Thank you for an illuminating video - subscribed, liked, and hungry for more.

I love your channel and just wanted to make you aware I prefer long fourm videos. Making the videos shorter trims out your humorous side and the depth of the information provided.

OMG. So with the ban of lamps in the reptile hobby in the US and EU coming down the pipe, these tools are sorely needed to keep our pets healthy.

Very nicely explained and demonstrated! I wanted to look for different lines of emission from pure hydrogen spectra; particularly of Balmer & Paschen series. I wanted to get assured about the same! Or whether we were just thought to be so! Thanks.

I have that exact 450 nm pointer. It is not a DPSSL, it's direct eiode, so there should be no IR emission. I would suspect the same for the 410 nm, not that DPSSL is impossible, but they would cost more than 10x as much as a direct diode laser. Looking at the spectral width, I am fairly sure these should both be direct diode lasers. You should be able to tell by which way the batteries are inserted, or, you might be able to open them up to see the module. The 532 nm, however, is indeed, more likely, DPSSL, pumped with an 808 nm IR laser, so that is reassuring... however, the artefacts for the near UV lasers is concerning to me. I'm 98% sure something is wrong with the spectromeret... higher order diffraction or some other interference, rather than an issue with the laser. Still, though, both products are interesting to me. If they are available in the USA for under $150, I'd seriously consider these. If they go higher than that, they'll already be in competition with other super-low cost spectrometers that seem to have fewer reported bugs.

Yes, I hope that they can fix these deficiencies. I'm interested in purchasing a low-cost spectrometer; I have a product I'm developing that I need a tool such as this to explore the light sources I plan to use in it! Upfront: The Functionality and Price will be determining factors in my purchase decision. I agree with the criticism about the software's abilities, they need to be improved. Please, do spend some more time to polish it up before releasing. Even the ability to connect to that 3rd party's open source software might be a good way to get it there, just a suggestion. I think it is wonderful to have an opportunity to communicate and be part of the community that helps shape the product's we use! And for the manufacturer, it must be a great opportunity for you to get direct and useful feedback by the customers. In any event, I'm looking forward to part 2 and see if we made a difference. Thanks a bunch!

There should be CSV output, but I wonder if the pdf might be able to be "read" by Chat GPT which would output what it "saw" in your format of choice? Edit: I just tried it with Claude and it told me that the resolution of the chart I gave it wasn't good enough for accurate reading. I'd like to see the PDF output of this instrument. If high enough resolution it may work.

Love the embedded humour

This kind of affordable spectrometer is really useful for lighting designers and others invo!ved in architectural lighting design for confirmation of product specification. Also increasingly important in other areas of professional lighting such as photography and videography. So far the product seems pretty good for our kinds of use with sufficient resolution and accuracy. Typically the output format in PDF isOK if we have enough detail and refencesto ISO and CIE standards however CSV is necessary For calculating colour fidelity and also for melanopic effectiveness through standard tools freely available from IES and CIE. Price in the market is also important as will be thelevel of calibration against traceable standards to NIST or other international standards. Also how about recalibration? If it is cheap enough and calibration from new is warrantied for say 2 years then replace that would be good enough if the unit is cheap enough. Currently I need to replace my existing spectrophotometer as the company who made it are out of business and it cannot be recalibrated also there is no software support for it

I WANT ONE!

This is an amazing solution seeking a problem to solve…..

Looks like a great-ish product with some software needs. Get the software dialed in.

I ordered the little garden from China after saw you video - its working surprising nice. Also I prefer you keep the robotic voice instead of real human voice 😆😆

I’d be interested in seeing flame tests of some chemicals just for variety. Not table salt, but something more complex. I could see buying one of these when they have CSV, although I don’t need it.

I have to tell you about my favorite named color of all time! I was looking at paint samples at the hardware store and the best name was “Bluish.” How overstrained from inventing new color names does your brain have to be to say “Well, it’s not blue, but it’s blue-ish”?

Fascinating. Hope it gets some SW improvements before it hits the North American market.

Would be great if there was a macOS version of the software, in English.

Thank you for the great review. I am interested in the glass tube LEDs in that you used - please share the source 🤓

Regarding the green laser: The small IR peak is from the IR pumping diode which then goes through two crystals which do the frequency doubling, etc. This green laser appears to adequately filter out the IR but many do not. Edit: You mention this with the violet laser. I see this video took a while to put together, LOL

I am very interested in this device, if it has iOS support and CSV data output!

Another fantastic video! Even with the better accuracy and interesting technology in the TLM-2, I would still much, MUCH rather just make my own spectrometer so I could use software that's actually useful. If I could use the TLM-2 with open source software, or if the company software didn't feel and look like spyware from 1998, it would be an instant buy. So, Torchbearer can choose to gate-keep functional software behind a paywall, and get $0 of my money, or put out a useful product and at least get some of my money.

Eu sou químico, e tenho pesquisado a respeito dos espectrometros e a aplicabilidade desses equipamentos na identificação de substâncias químicas e esse é muito interessante.

I am very grateful for your review. I hope to get one of each. I would be very interested in a review comparing these devices to the Hopoocolor OHSP-350SF - a much more expensive device. In addition to being a spectrometer, it also reports flicker and many other parameters. There is a very important use for this little device, particularly if it can be run off an iPhone or Android. That is for people like me who are extremely sensitive to and destroyed by both LED blue light, and by 100 or 120 hertz flicker. The rapid shift to LED lights for "energy saving" (low hanging fruit, so-called), do nothing of the sort. The horrible throw of the lights and their far faster than rated failure mean that they fail to measure up. But worse, they have many (MANY MANY MANY) health and environmental hazards. 1) The intense blue light at 452 nm burns the retina and eye tissues. The RG0 (unlimited) safety standard exhausts the ability of the eye to repair from the bleaching by the blue lit light in 2 hours 47 minutes per day (10,000 seconds). That excludes all other blue light (e.g. phones, computers, pads ...). After that exposure, the safe exposure for the rest of the day to blue light is ZERO! Yet people are expected to work and live under RG0 for about 12-16 hours per day. 4.3 to 5.74 times the maximum allowed to prevent eye damage. 2) Beyond that and through other mechanisms, the lights cause macular degeneration leading to blindness. The injury is most severe in children who have no yellowing of the lenses of their eyes, and people over 50 who have had lens replacements that have no yellowing. Also, at over age 50 the chemistry of the eye changes making outcomes much worse. 3) The intense blue light from LEDs activates the Intrinsic photosensitive ganglion receptor (ipGRC) cells in the eye. These cells process information from the rods and cones AND are the 4th color receptor. They detect 474 nm blue light (broad spectrum) to identify that the sun is up. And with that they instruct the pineal gland to NOT make the hormone melatonin. This effect is strong and requires complete avoidance for two hours before sleep. Nearly no one avoids LED light for two hours before bed. As a result, the circadian and hormone rhythms are disrupted. In replicate studies (most importantly a Spanish study on Ambient light at Night - ALAN[), this blue light has been shown conclusively to be a human carcinogen. It does this via the disruption of the hormone cycle. The end result is a 50% increase in breast cancer, a 105% increase in in prostate cancer, and an 18% increase in GI and rectal cancer FROM STREETLIGHTS ALONE! With indoor use these rates are at least 25% higher (1.25x). We are now seeing a rapid rise in breast cancers since 2017 following a linear rate of increase that has the "experts" (i.e. the ignorant buffoons) baffled. We are now 7 years into that, and before we can recognize the error of our ways and ban and recall all blue light emitting LED lighting, we will have committed to killing about 10 million Americans alone. Similar in Europe. More in Asia. And that is if we act to ban and recall all of them. Worse, the background rise in these cancers since the 1960s was caused by blue light from fluorescent lamps. That is a puzzle that has baffled experts for half a century, We now know the cause. And had we recognized that in 2015-2017 and changed the design of these lights to not emit melanopic light at night, we would see falling cancer rates rather than drastically rising rates. 4) Next add the devastating effects of high frequency flicker. This is flicker seen by the eyes and organs in the brain, but faster than the image forming part of the brain can resolve. this flicker causes headaches in most people (and related issues). In high IQ individuals with faster neuron response speeds the effects are terrifically worse and can lead to periodic blindness from optical migraines, plus migraines, plus loud subjective tonal tinnitus, plus GI and urinary issues and more. But the worst impacts are not to humans. They are to small mammals (birds ...) and insects. These devices being inexpensive allow people to carry with them a test device to assess just how dangerous stores, shops, offices and other locations are. And to assess available lighting to determine just how dangerous it may be. Also, infrared light is crucial for health. It drives our mitochondria. Yet LED light is intentionally devoid of "wasted hear energy" in the form of life and health giving infrared and red light.

I would be interested in one of these, but only if the suggested improvements in the video were made, and especially if the software for it was made to be open source. An additional suggestion would be for it to be USB-C compatible.

Definitely needs a way to get the data into other software--like csv file output. But with that, the company I work for would buy several of them.

I love this content. I'm not worried about watching an hour's worth of it for sure!

Very nice video Greetings from Greece SIR!!!

One issue that cheap array spectrometers suffer from is straylight, especially excess signal In the blue/UV. Grading instruments can have order sorting filters and multiple gratings to eliminate. This one has some filtration on the pixels and a magic algorithm. I’d have done some tests with a broadband source and a thick bit of various schott coloured filters, see if you get any signal where you should see none. You could also check you “higher order effect” hypothesis by filtering the source so there is no light in that spectral region and then seeing if the higher order lines appear. Calibrated, how, against what and for what sources? Interesting little device. No numbers out is no sales made. No way to check noise floor, stray light etc. roll on part 2.

Liked & subscribed! Really appreciate your testing of affordable micro spectrometers that can be used by science oriented diy'ers for all sorts of applications. I'm particularly interested in greenhouse growing of edible crops over all 4 seasons. Especially the quality of light reaching plants through combinations of glass, clear plastic, shade cloth, and even artificial lighting sources. I'm sure other application will occur to me as I progress in my diy homesteading experiments. Thanks for your detailed analysis of product performance and cheeky & accurate observations about excessive capitalist marketing strategies that would hobble potential customers. (With all of the existential crises that we humans are facing in the 21st century, what is most needed are innovations that are affordable, full featured, extensible and, where possible, even open sourced - so that maximum global reach is achieved. Profits can come from widespread global market penetration & large volume deals with STEM-oriented organizations.)

To the manufacturer: I direly want a spectral analyzer tool. if you add a CSV export OR a CRI rating, I would try to buy it if it is available in Germany. Please add CSV export or CRI measurement

It was a pleasure to watch something without u-tubes con-job ads that sometimes run longer than the actual video. I don't know, do we want to attraction the monsters attention with a subscribe and a like. Well I've done it anyways so we'll see what happens. But keep your head down.

Does ionizable radiation make the florescent coating on LEDs glow? what is the strength of this ionizable radiation? Can florescent coated LEDs visually indicate the presence of fallout? Assume they had these LEDs in Pripyat will they see unpowered glowing LEDs? Also does ionizable radiation damage the florescent coating? Another question. Since florescent material degrade with time will florescent coated LEDs lose their color after decades?

A reasonable software in English is a prerequisite for international marketing. Is it so difficult to remember the language and the COM port? Is it that difficult to install a usable image export?

Nice vid! I would lose the text-to-speech to be honest.

Morgan, the listing for the Little Garden spectrometer now mentions: "The algorithm of the software has been modified (adding irradiation correction, removing background noise, etc.) to measure relative intensity more accurately, and the color temperature, color coordinates, and color rendering index can be calculated with an accuracy of more than 90%" He provides a link to this modified version. Have you used this modified version of Theremino for the tests in this video?

Can you do a video on the FS 5000 firmware upgrade. I'm going to try and install it soon once I receive the st-link v2

I’m surprised they could even find a usb mini b port to put on it.

Thanks!

Good idea.

Since it appears that this new model has a reflected diffraction grating (im hoping it is surface reflective) and they made their own sensor, im wondering if they could increase the spectral range further into the UV. If that is not possible to keep it in budget, it would be nice to see an affordable model that maybe starts in blue or violet, but can function down to 200 or 250nm.

Where can I get some of those LED bulbs featured? Perhaps they are available on other markets? AliExpress, DHGate, etc. what is the brand or model of the LED bulbs?

5nm resolution is still pretty bad. I'm just spoiled on real diffraction gratings, I suppose.

Looks to be a useful device, spoilt by the absolutely crap enclosure. If they dont have pride in the presentation then they are probably falling short elsewhere. My vote is for the little garden device and I hope the creator make some money from it before he get crapped upon.

This maybe a silly question but can these readings be used to get RGB or CMYK values for the colour you read with this device?

I would be interested by the TM2 however no access to the data no purchase! put an open-source software on it pls. Finally the mini USB plug is outdated. Cables start to be harder to find.

I thought your channel has been stolen

So, how much will/do they cost?

That Max Headroom flashback

Sent you an email about the high pressure sodium lamp. Something doesn't look right :) I can't wait to receive the Little Garden spectrometer so I can test myself.

Sorry to be that guy but you should have locked the white balance on the camera shooting the test footage. It shifts noticeably when you change light sources.

Re the artificial light ..you may have chosen "silicon enhanced "

PEACHES - F*** The Pain Away

The one thing i don't understand is that if you make a product for "nerdy" people why do they go with windows as the OS for their applications? STEM people are used to linux, some even talk Octave in their sleep 😀 Windows is over.

Neat.

<a href="#" class="seekto" data-time="331">5:31</a> How can this determine wavelength with just a few wavelength sensors? Our eyes can't determine wavelength, e.g. red and green together look yellow, just like yellow looks.

Red laser pointer: IR peak a "higher order diffraction line"? As in harmonics? But that's a lower frequency. Sidenote, I think these graphs should be orientated with the lowest frequencies on the left and highest towards the right as both radio waves and ionising radiation are.

What about an ultra violet "flaslight"?

hmm. the export functionality and an overall improved app could well be made by reverse engineering the protocol and some python.

he handle sun with bare hands!

Ah! Using your own voice this time around? Edit: Max Entropy 😂

Nice work. It seems pointless to hold back on software because after all, these low-end devices are uncertified and will not be certifiable.

can i use that 50$ spectrometer to identify gemstones ... ? what is a 'Raman spectrometer or 'Raman microspectroscopy' ? i want one that does not cost 6000 euro bought from GIA (Gemeological Institure of America)

I prefer Arthur over Max, but I know I'll lose this one. Peace!

Why is the deuterium arc lamp dreaded?

Without .csv output or preferably an api, this is but a toy.

.csv please.

great video until 23minute... a consumer uv laser with pump diode?? no way, 2nd order diffraction! such parts make me question the rest of the video and its accuracy.... also shining an unknown laser directly into the aperature.... dunno