129
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$10,077
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Funding period
Apr 25, 2012 -
Jun 1, 2012
- First created · 7 backed
- Joanne Long 170 friends
- Website: iorodeo.com
Pledge $1 or more
39 backers
Your name listed as a backer on the site.
Estimated delivery: Jul 2012Pledge $35 or more
9 backers
COLORIMETER PCBs. At this level backers will receive the colorimeter LED PCB, colorimeter sensor PCB and colorimeter shield. Includes free domestic shipping. International orders please add $10 for shipping.
Estimated delivery: Jul 2012Pledge $80 or more
31 backers
COLORIMETER KIT. At this level backers will receive a complete colorimeter kit. Each colorimeter kit ships in a 6" x 4" x 3" clear container and contains the following items: Colorimeter LED board * Colorimeter sensor board * Colorimeter shield for the Arduino * Laser cut acrylic parts for the enclosure * Hardware for the enclosure (screws, nuts, washers and standoffs) * 4 x pre-crimped colored wires and housing * Assembled ribbon cable for connecting the colorimeter to your Arduino * Set of 6 sample cuvettes * Mini Philips screwdriver. Includes free domestic shipping. International orders please add $28 for shipping.
Estimated delivery: Jul 2012Pledge $120 or more
26 backers
COLORIMETER KIT PLUS PRE-PROGRAMMED ARDUINO. At this level backers will receive everything at the $80 reward level PLUS a pre-programmed Arduino Uno Rev3. Includes free domestic shipping. International orders please add $28 for shipping.
Estimated delivery: Jul 2012Pledge $120 or more
5 backers
NEW USER REQUESTED REWARD - BASIC EDUCATIONAL KIT. At this reward level backers will receive a colorimeter kit plus a set of 3 colored food dyes and volumetric flasks for completing Lab 1 and 2 in the user manual. Includes free domestic shipping. International orders please add $34 for shipping.
Estimated delivery: Jul 2012Pledge $175 or more
0 backers
READY TO USE COLORIMETER. At this level backers will receive an assembled colorimeter with a pre-programmed Arduino Uno Rev3. Includes free domestic shipping. International orders please add $28 for shipping.
Estimated delivery: Jul 2012Pledge $200 or more
2 backers
EDUCATIONAL KIT. At this reward level backers will receive a colorimeter kit plus 1) Printed and spiral-bound copy of the online user manual 2) Set of 3 colored food dyes and volumetric flasks for completing Lab 1 and 2 in the user manual; 3) Set of 100 lab cuvettes and 4) Exclusive to Kickstarter - We will laser engrave a word, school or class name onto the cover of the colorimeter. Includes free domestic shipping. International orders please add $34 for shipping.
Estimated delivery: Jul 2012Pledge $240 or more
9 backers
EDUCATIONAL KIT PLUS PRE-PROGRAMMED ARDUINO. At this level backers will receive everything in the previous reward PLUS a pre-programmed Arduino Uno Rev3. Includes free domestic shipping. International orders please add $34 for shipping.
Estimated delivery: Jul 2012
Creator Benjamin Lebsanft on August 13, 2012
Stickers? What do you mean Jose?
Creator Benjamin Lebsanft on August 12, 2012
Jose: Yeah but I agree. The colorhug, an open hardware screen calibration colorimeter, includes a page with detailled instructions and links.
Creator mike smith on August 10, 2012
Just got mine put together, great instructions, guys! Now to start looking at coffee thru it! (if it can analyse water, it can probably do TDS in coffee)
Creator Jose Hevia on August 10, 2012
I found a sticker in one bag(once it was already mounted), but I opened the bag from the other side.
@Bengamin: Good for you, I celebrate that. I found the page 30 min later. I thought the "Education" area was about training kids or something.
Creator Benjamin Lebsanft on August 9, 2012
Works like a charm :)
Creator Benjamin Lebsanft on August 9, 2012
@Jose: http://www.iorodeo.com/colorimeter Took me 2s to find
Creator Jose Hevia on August 8, 2012
Received my colorimeter, two things:
1- It is only obvious for you where the documentation is. I spent 30 min looking for it on the web page. Just add a single note on the kit.
2- Photos in teh documentation are very very bad. Take a DLSR camera and use High dynamic range so we could see differences in blacks.
Creator mpechner on July 31, 2012
Just put mine together.
Two design nits.
Why did you now make the base so that that arduino mounts to it? A little more acrylic with standard arduino mounting holes.
Also, the inner slider should be tighter.
Creator Benjamin Lebsanft on July 25, 2012
As the 7th update reads shipments are starting tuesday, yes
Creator Chuck P on July 24, 2012
Just got a shipment notification, could they already be going out?!
Creator Benjamin Lebsanft on July 15, 2012
Great! Really looking forward to it :)
Creator IO Rodeo on July 13, 2012
We are currently waiting on one last remaining part for the kits (the laser cut enclosures) which should be arriving any day now. We will post an update when we have firm shipping dates, but as of right now, we expect to be shipping all of the rewards over the next 1-2 weeks if all continues to go smoothly :)
Creator Benjamin Lebsanft on July 12, 2012
Any news on when the colorimeters will be sent out?
Creator IO Rodeo on May 30, 2012
Hi Scott,
Yes, the colorimeter software will be available for Windows, Linux and Mac OS. In addition, the Arduino firmware for the colorimeter can be compiled on the host PC (Windows, Linux, Mac) and uploaded to the Arduino board using the Arduino IDE.
Creator Scott Catron on May 30, 2012
Will the Arduino firmware work on macs?
Creator Jose Hevia on May 29, 2012
Well, you could do videos and host them on youtube or vimeo. It is easier to learn when you see it than reading it.
Creator IO Rodeo on May 28, 2012
Hi Benjamin, we will be putting together documents for home water quality testing and we will post them as updates here as well. Thanks again for your support of the colorimeter !
Creator Icelightning on May 27, 2012
So close to getting funded! I know you'll make it. My brother's going to enjoy putting his colorimeter together and playing with it.
Creator Benjamin Lebsanft on May 27, 2012
I would appreciate it if you could maybe document for colorimeter newbies like me what indicator dyes you'd need to do water quality measurements yourself.
Creator IO Rodeo on May 22, 2012
Hi Steve,
Thanks for the link to the LEDs. We will take a look at them.
The sensor we are using with the colorimeter is the TAOS color light to frequency sensor (Mouser # 856-TCS3200D-TR). Like the sensor you mentioned, this is characterized to 375 nm and most likely cuts out before 260/280 nm. It shouldn't be a problem to find a different sensor that we can use with 260/280 UV LEDs. This is definitely worth looking into further.
Creator IO Rodeo on May 22, 2012
Jose, thanks for all of your feedback and support. We will be adding more resources as we continue to support and develop the colorimeter. We agree that these kinds of open source projects also need alot of documentation in the form of how-to videos etc. if they are to be successful :)
Creator steve on May 21, 2012
There was some questions on UV LEDs for 260/280 (nucleic acids) here is a vendor (not to be confused with the SETI)
http://www.s-et.com/
What I don't know is if IORodeo is using the sensor on Sparkfun? If so, it's bottom range is spec'ed out at ~400nm. Not sure if just needs to be characterized at 260/280nm, or if 400nm is the limit of the sensor.
Creator Jose Hevia on May 21, 2012
Hi, you are making laboratory equipment for the masses!
This is fantastic, but maybe you could add "home applications" to the colorimeter so "normal" people could find this useful and back the project. From cooking to adding fertilizer to your plants or measuring dirtiness, controlling your dogs or cat water, controlling the PH in your pool or detecting drugs. You could be creative but nobody is going to do it if you don't do it.
Laboratory equipment is very expensive because they sell in low quantities, so if you want to sell inexpensive you need big quantities, and for that you need normal people finding your products useful.
I believe you are scientist that just wanted to have open hardware so they created it yourself. Because of that you could create "recipes" so people that are not scientist could use this colorimeter, and show those in a video so people could say "This is exactly what I need for doing X".
Without that 99% of the people won't even know what a colorimeter is.
Keep the great work.
Creator IO Rodeo on May 15, 2012
Hi Benjamin ! We've had a lot of questions on here and via email, so we will compile them into a FAQ later today. Since launching the Kickstarter it has been really interesting and exciting to see the response from the community. We will do all we can to attract new backers and make this happen in the next 16 days -- more updates for sure as we get closer to the finish line ! !
Creator IO Rodeo on May 15, 2012
Hi Chuck, thanks for all of your support ! We are working to get the specs for the colorimeter (accuracy, precision and resolution) and should have those shortly. While we are focusing on nitrate, nitrite and ammonia right now, we are planning on adding to this list to include chlorine, pH, water hardness etc.
We definitely agree that it would be interesting to aquarium folks ..... with the colorimeter you do still add the test chemicals to a sample of aquarium water to get the colorimetric result. However, it is a much more quantitative assay as opposed to the typical qualitative assay where you compare the color to a chart. With the colorimeter you will get a more accurate ppm of the test chemical. I like your idea of automatically sampling the water in line with the aquarium using a gate valve. What we would also need to do would be to mix in the test chemicals at the same time as sampling ....
Creator Benjamin Lebsanft on May 15, 2012
Any news, details, changes? Maybe a few updates to the kickstarter page would be interesting to attract new backers. $2500 shouldn't be hard to get in 16 days. Let's make this happen :)
Creator Chuck P on May 14, 2012
IO Rodeo, do you have any specs as to the accuracy of the measurements you mentioned that can be performed on launch? (ammonia, nitrites, nitrates, pH, phosphates)
As a salt water aquarist I am shocked more people are not grabbing this up. Depending on the accuracy of the above parameters this should be marketed towards that crowd. Currently all but pH are typically done with color changing liquid tests which is a lot of extra time a work. Re-configuring this unit slightly and adding a gate valve could be placed in line to the aquarium for automated results. Typical standard grade pH probes run the price of this project alone, and must be replaced every 1-2 years.
Creator Benjamin Lebsanft on May 11, 2012
Thank you very much. I just upped my pledge :)
Creator IO Rodeo on May 10, 2012
Hi Benjamin, thanks for your reward suggestion. We have added this additional reward at the $120 level.
Creator Benjamin Lebsanft on May 10, 2012
Could you add a reward above the 80$ one with the colored food dyes set and the volumetric flasks please? I already have an arduino but am missing the dyes and the flasks.
Creator IO Rodeo on May 9, 2012
Hi Mark, thanks for your question. The required cuvette volume is 1mL. The cuvettes that come with the colorimeter kit are Spectronic Plastic Semi-Micro Cuvettes.
Creator Mark Acierno on May 9, 2012
Just a quick question... What is the requiored volume of the cuvette used in this project?
Creator Michael Miller on May 7, 2012
When I was in high school, one of my science fair projects was a homemade colorimeter. It hooked to the joystick port of my Commodore 64, using one of the paddle inputs to provide a range of values. I used it to measure pH levels of a solution via litmus powder. Good times. :)
Hopefully some kids will enjoy doing much more technically sophisticated experiments with this kit!
Creator IO Rodeo on May 6, 2012
Hi Chuck, yes, measuring nucleic acid concentration at 260/280 nm with a spectrophotometer is the standard method. Spectrophotometers have a narrow bandwidth (I think around 2nm). I am curious as to whether using UV LEDs would work or if they are too broad. I suppose it would depend on the LED. If you want to send us the vendor info we can take a look at the LEDs you found. In the meantime, we can also look at sensors that might work better with UV than the color sensor in the colorimeter. A more affordable way to quantify DNA would be really useful I agree. Not everyone has access to a spectrophotometer for sure. An alternative to using UV would be to use fluorescent dyes, which would require exciting with one wavelength and measuring emission at a different wavelength.
? For measuring at 260/280 nm we would also need to use a quartz cuvette, but that's just a matter of buying a (more expensive) cuvette.
Creator Chuck P on May 6, 2012
I am looking to determine the quality of a DNA sample and it appears for a colorimeter two LEDs are required a 260nm and 280nm LED. You can use just a single LED to perform Beer Lambert Law calculation or e pair to determine proteins vs nucleic acid. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nucleic_acid_quantitation
The LEDs seemed to range in price but iwas able to find a source with with 260 (harder to find) and 280nm LEDs for around $2 apiece granted they are not lab grade and require minimum orders of 100. Compare that to the lab grade vendors that were charging almost $200 for a 100 qty order.
Creator steve on May 5, 2012
Agree with Chuck. If you can come up with a solution for 260-280nm, that would be very powerful. And valuable.
Creator IO Rodeo on May 5, 2012
Hi Chuck, thanks for your question. Yes, we have considered a UV add-on. The colorimeter can be modified to swap out the LED board for different experiments and I definitely agree that a UV addition would be cool. Are you thinking along the lines of nucleic acid quantification, or some other experiment ? We would be interested in any ideas you might have for a UV experiment. In the meantime, we will look into designing a UV board. Thanks !
Creator Chuck P on May 5, 2012
Have you considered a UV add on? Adding in the 200-400 range would be quite an amazing addition.
Creator IO Rodeo on May 3, 2012
Hi Steve, thanks for the pledge and comment.
The slit window which sits directly behind the cuvette and in front of the sensor is 3mm (W) x 5mm (H). This allows only light which has passed through the cuvette to reach the sensor. The distance between the slit and the sensor itself is approx. 25 mm. Both dimensions could be modified. I hope that answered your question, let me know if you need any further info.
Thanks again !
Creator steve on May 2, 2012
Cool kit, hope you make your goal. What is the slit width between the sample and the detector? Can it be modified?