And at $500.00 calibrated that is a bargain at today's
prices for a brand new one...
Jerry
For sure - and mine has been worth every penny I paid for it.
But I know that, you for example, could make one of these.
The principal is very very simple. First of all, ignore the fact that it's got a "fiber input". In reality, there's nothing to that other than a hole drilled in the optical bench with the fiber connector epoxied on. On the inside, that just shines at a mirror.
You basically have two mirrors and a diffraction grating inside. These things can all be purchased. You have some adjustment mechanisms that are no more complex than what the guys on PL use in their projectors (less so), and then you have a linear CCD. That's the only complicated part of the whole setup - the CCD. The software does nothing but read and interpret the intensity of light hitting various portions of the CCD, and scale values based on a polynomial equation.
I don't think we could necessarily beat the $200 uncalibrated pricing, especially not initially, but I also don't think we'd be that far off. Long story short, I don't think it's a "getting them cheaper" argument with spectrometers. But rather, I think it's more of a "we can make these things in the hobby community one". I'm sure some enterprising young members will tackle it soon enough.