Roberto Michelena wrote:
Considering the Spyder2 is $149 at Amazon, and furthermore the Pantone (Gretag) Huey is only $79... the only point a Do It Yourself monitor colorimeter would be educational.
There's more to it than that. A Do It Yourself monitor colorimeter has the advantage that you can interface to it. The Spyder2 and Huey could conceivably take as much effort to reverse engineer, as it would take to make a colorimeter.
However a DIY reflective spectro with XY table would be most welcome :)
This is possible, but the price would be similar to an Eye1 and Eye0. Most spectrometer modules start at about US2000+ - see <http://oceanoptics.com/products/usb4000uvvis.asp> for example, and the 0/45 reflective optics have to be constructed, and added to it. Making a usefully accurate spectrometer yourself is a non trivial exercise. Where does the diffraction grating come from, and how do you calibrate it ? To do it properly, you need access to laboratory grade standards or instruments to compare it to, and it would be all to easy to end up with a low accuracy instrument. (I thing some of the astronomy crowd have attempted this sort of thing, with some degree of success ?)
A DIY XY table might be a more viable proposition, and considerable savings could be made on something like this: <http://www.colorscout.com/ColorScoutcom.htm>, if you were prepared to put the effort in.
I'm sure the parts list would add up to less than $500, for a device that usually sells over $2500. And you could do a large aperture (and large table size) one for wide-format (billboard) printers, for which the only current solution is the Barbieri at over $8000 I believe. Probably it'd be slow, but the educational experience on that one would be really matched with real savings. A great project for a university!
I'm not so sure. As a learning exercise, or to create an instrument with special capabilities, or as a start up venture for a company that intends to manufacture such things, it's a fine idea.
As an alternative to a commercial instrument, I'm not sure it really works out, unless your time and effort are very cheap.
If you don't do many profiles, then a semi-manual instrument like the Eye1 or the X-rite Pulse are pretty good value for money, for very solid instruments. Yes, they are probably outside the price range for those who want to do a couple of profiles for their low cost inkjets, so an over the net, profiling service may be the best bet for them. If you are making lots of profiles, then presumably there is some money somewhere motivating all those profiles, and some of it should go to pay for the appropriate automation !
Graeme Gill.
