How to Get the Best Light Splitting Effect from your Prism

I've read some reviews that expressed some disappointment with the instructions included with the Prisms, so this page is here to help you get the best light-splitting "rainbow" effect from yours.

First, you need to make a Ray Box. Use a cardboard box, like a shoe box. DON'T use corrugated cardboard, because its thickness makes makes cutting a clean ray slit very difficult.

Cut a very narrow slit in the box--this part is critical--make the slit very narrow, 1-2mm or so. Use very sharp scissors or better, a box-cutter or razor. Once you've got your slit cut, put the box upside down on a table, as shown in the extremely professional diagram below.

Next, put a piece of white paper on the table and position the box as shown here:

For best lighting, you should get a light bulb holder and bulb attached to a battery for under your box, but a nice bright flashlight should work. Whatever you're using, it's time to turn it on and put it under the box.

Turn out the lights in your room. You should see a nice, crisp, narrow ray emerging from the slit in your box. If you don't, then your slit it too wide.

Stand your prism up on its end and place it on the paper so that the light ray is passing through it. SLOWLY rotate the prism on its end until you split the ray into a faint (more faint than in the diagram below) rainbow that will be displayed on the white paper.

Lastly, take another piece of white paper and hold it upright like a mini-movie screen to display an arching, more visible and visually striking rainbow.

With some practice, this procedure will work great, but I had the best result using two prisms, one to focus the beam coming out of the ray box into a second prism, which then split the focused beam onto the paper. Good luck!

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