EISCO Premium Quantitative Spectroscope - 400-700nm Range, 5nm Accuracy - for Studying Light Sources, Measuring Wavelengths & Color Spectra

It works.

Works fine for the price. I think the accuracy is overstated as plus and minus 5 nm, but for my lab, determining the wavelength of the output of various light-emitting diodes, it was accurate enough. Takes a couple of minutes to become adept with it.

I remember using these in science class. I wanted to visually evaluate light sources for “full spectrum” output. Lots of LED lights are closer to line emission which lowers color fidelity. This helps me assess that. I was a little surprised to see that the view port and the light window appear to have been hand cut. I’m so used to mold injection parts being fully formed that the irregularities of a hand cut were unexpected. Does not effect performance at all, but it does make it less polished.

To start, this is not a professional spectrophotometer or even spectrometer. (Did you expect one at this price?) It is a spectroscope, a lightweight device you can look through and see the colors emitted by an object. I turned it on a Soraa LED lamp (image above); Soraa makes the best such lamps. Most inexpensive LED lamps will have a bright emission line somewhere near 450 nm (4.5 on the scale shown), then a broad emission spectrum (the conversion phosphor) from around 580-650 nm. This has five visible lines: 435 nm (the wavelength of the driving LED), 485 nm (cyan), 535 nm (green), 575 nm (yellow), and 600 nm (red). These numbers came from reading the spectroscope. Being an optical scientist, I was sure these were inaccurate, since I had thought Soraa's green phosphor was at 550 nm. It turns out the spectroscope was right. This is actually the second of these spectroscopes I have purchased. I thought I had broken my previous one, because if I looked at the LED light in my office with the spectroscope, I didn't see anything near the scale, but did see a spectrum off to the side. The side spectrum is always there, and should duplicate the spectrum by the scale. I couldn't see the spectrum from my lamp because the driving LED is at 405 nm (my glasses have a 405-nm blocking additive for this reason) and the broad phosphor spectrum is too dim. When I look at my monitor screen with the spectroscope I see three phosphor emissions, as I should; when I look at sunlight reflected from a white paper (NEVER look directly at the sun or at a laser with--or without--the spectroscope) there is a continuous spectrum. Overall, this is somewhat more than an educational toy, but definitely less than a professional instrument. At the price of $10-$15, though, you can't really go wrong. And, as it turns out, the accuracy is far better than I had thought.

Worked as expected

Worth the $10 to experiment and see what various lights look like. I don’t know why the directions specifically tell you to use a fluorescent light, but as you can see from the photos it’s the only one that looks different from the other lights, as it has distinct spectral bands due to atomic emissions, instead of the broad spectrum all the other lights share. The full spectrum grow lights (second photo) seem very similar to the rest of my lights—daylight, random led, random incandescent. There’s lots of photo variability due to me trying to hold my phone and the spectroscope up to the light to take the photo in midair.

It has a great design and I was able to view the spectrum of space objects. The only problem is that my little kids moved the eye piece out of the way and now its not working... Careful with the little people! Its not a toy it's an instrument

Totally worth the money for the objective at hand.

Malgré que le spectre ne soit pas très lumineux, pour le prix c'est quand même ok. J'ai testé la précision de l'échelle avec 3 lasers. À 410nm il donne 415, à 530nm el donne 525 et à 650nm il donne 640. Voici une vidéo sur youtube qui indique comment mesurer précisément la longueur d,onde d'un laser avec un "diffracting grating". Although the spectrum is not very bright, for the price it's still ok. I tested the accuracy of the scale with 3 lasers. At 410nm it gives 415, at 530nm it gives 525 and at 650nm it gives 640. Here is a video on youtube that shows how to accurately measure the wavelength of a laser with a "diffracting grating".

It works. Fascinating differences between spectra of 'white' artificial lights. Crudely made: needs a finer intake slit, less internal reflection and a lens to view through. But you can actually read off the Angstrom wavelengths, more or less. Feasible to fix these things yourself - a bit of extra science!

A lot of fun (looking at the spectra of tube lights or of the light passing through colored solutions).

It's OK for a toy. But the slit has to be a bit narrower to be able to see 5nm separation!

Simple and easy, but a bit hard to see the scale... might not be a calibrated tool but give an idea...