I was working on something like this for the toshiba tcd2304(?) units a few years ago. I have a working prototype in my closet using a psoc5.
Psoc5 is perfect for this kind of project because it integrates cpld-like functionality with a microcontroller that can also perform serial over USB. You you can get jitter free logic signals to the linear ccd.
The raman spectrometer functionality of these units could be really useful for certain projects. I have half a dozen of them in my basement, and I hacked them a few years ago just for the spectrometer portion. But the filters and fiber laser are nice too. But like you, I never really took it any farther, mostly for lack of a good project to use it on.
I also have the filter and laser part, but the performance of the filter and beam splitter probe is too poor for it to be useful.
At least mine have strong self-fluorescence, making it hard to get a meaningful data as the laser intensity are not that stable. Also the short excitation wavelength of 423 nm led to significant fluorescence in many samples I tried.
Reading out those CCDs needs some signal conditioning and ADC, the time needed to build and debug them by myself worth more than a second hand Ocean Optics or Verity, so I wouldn't bother.
Psoc5 is perfect for this kind of project because it integrates cpld-like functionality with a microcontroller that can also perform serial over USB. You you can get jitter free logic signals to the linear ccd.
The raman spectrometer functionality of these units could be really useful for certain projects. I have half a dozen of them in my basement, and I hacked them a few years ago just for the spectrometer portion. But the filters and fiber laser are nice too. But like you, I never really took it any farther, mostly for lack of a good project to use it on.