DIY mass spectrometer measures potassium in dietary salt substitute
Applied Science3 HN recommenders · recommended in 3 months, 2020–2023
demo · intermediate · evergreen · 2020–2023 on HN
Ben Krasnow of Applied Science builds and operates a simple mass spectrometer, using it to measure potassium isotopes in a salt substitute. He explains the design choices and the theory behind it.
Recommended as an expert-made DIY build that explains why the apparatus is designed as it is, though one commenter notes a missing baseline run.
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4 comments from Hacker News
The channels that I had in mind when I wrote that are channels by experts in their fields, which somehow often happen to be low production value - because you know real scientists are about substance, not style :-) So here's a random one in that category: this guy decided to try and build a mass spectrometer from scratch ▶ this video
You might like - ▶ this video ( DIY mass spectrometer measures potassium in dietary salt substitute ) by Ben Krasnow
You'd be interested in Ben Krasnow's DiY attempt. It's still understandable but he tries to explain why it's built the way it is and give you a good basis of the theory of operation. ▶ this video
Ben Krasnow took some steps in that direction: ▶ this video As with his Raman setup, there were some good questions raised in the comments about whether he really saw the effect in question or just got lucky with plausible-appearing artifacts. It's hard to assess validity from the presented results alone, which is unfortunately common in Ben's videos. In the Raman video, he didn't test anything but a single styrofoam cup, and in the mass-spec video he didn't do the obvious baseline run with a clean filament. Ben's channel is one of those rare ones where the comments are worth reading. You can really see how easy it is for a scientist to inadvertently fool themselves and others. I often end up yelling at the screen, but it's still my favorite YouTube channel of all time.