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    Home made optics

    September 12, 2016

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    J. Summers

    We are working to help further develop a low cost spectrometer design that was published online by B. Hickman.  To support this work, we are developing simple methods to make reflective optics. 

    The figure to the left shows a screenshot of a parabolic reflector des...

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    CURRENT PROJECTs

     

    August, 2017:

       Work during summer 2017 focused on two projects, the WheeStat potentiostat and the stopped flow spectrometry apparatus.

    •    Work on the WheeStat included changes to the user interface, firmware and hardware.  The newest version of the user interface, WheeStat6.0c, has a new zoom feature and a few bugs from the older interface have been fixed.  We believe the new hardware will be out by the end of 2017.  The new hardware will have an improved method for turning off applied voltatage between experiments.  This is a hardware fix that requires modification of the firmware as well.  We will offer an add-on for our earlier hardware versions that incorporates this feature.  Addditional changes include increased current ranges and the potential for significantly increased scan rates.

    • Work on the stopped flow spectrometry project focused on increasing the injection speed.  Our initial effort focused on developing a rack and pinnion drive for the syringes.  This improved injection speed relative to the lead screw drive but failed to meet target speeds due, we believe, to limited torque provided by the small NEMA 17 motors we chose.  Our next attempt employed larger NEMA 23 motors.  These have significantly higher torque.  Unfortunately, our flow cell was unable to contain the generated pressure and began leaking.  Current efforts are focused on developing a lab-built UV-vis cell that will hold higher pressures.

     

    September, 2016:

    • Our work to automate solid phase synthesis of peptides / DNA, etc has progressed well, although the chemistry is more involved that I had origianally thought.  We have made our first attempt at synthesis of a cystiene modified tri-peptide

    • Our application for recognition by the IRS as tax exempt under 501(c)3 has been approved.

    • We have begun work on a low cost visible spectrometer that will use home built reflective optics.

    • We are working on developing a stopped flow kinetics instrument based on commercially avialable spectrometer.  Our current prototype is able to acquire spectra within 120 ms of mixing.  This dead time appears to be limited by the power of the motors we used.  We are investigating the use of larger motors and hope to get the dead time down to below 12 ms.

     

    PITTCON CONFERENCE & EXPO 2016

     

    Presentation  in Atlanta, GA,  March 6-10, 2016

    Our talk was well recieved at the Educational symposium at PittCon

    2016 SE REGIONAL ACS MEETING

    Oct 23-27, SouthEast Regional Meeting of the American Chemical Society, Columbia SC

    6-10