Michigan DataMaster Information

One of the greatest mysteries about drunk driving is the breath test, and how the breath test machine works. I have a breath test machine in my office, it's called the DataMaster. If you ever have the opportunity, I invite you to come into the office and take a look at it so that you can see hand's on how the machine operates.

It's also important for you to understand technically and scientifically how the machine works. This will help to remove some of the mystery around the breath test, and help you to understand how we can defend it. Basically, a DataMaster uses an infrared light beam to measure breath alcohol. This is called infrared spectrophotometry. The reason that it works is because alcohol, which is called scientifically ethanol, is known to absorb infrared light. As the infrared light travels through the sample chamber, where your breath is captured inside the machine, it causes the ethanol molecules inside the chamber to start to vibrate and therefore to absorb some of the infrared energy.

What happens inside the machine is the amount of energy that travels through the sample chamber with your breath is measured at the other end. If the amount of energy passing through the chamber is less at the other end, that lessoning is attributed to the presence of alcohol in your breath. The reason that it works is because the ethanol absorbs the infrared light.

One of the major problems with the machine is that ethanol absorbs infrared light and so does many other types of molecules that may be present in your breath. For example, acetone is something that is very similar chemically to ethanol, and also absorbs infrared light.

One of the problems with infrared spectrophotometry, or the DataMaster in general, is the fact that the infrared light doesn't know how to distinguish between ethanol, which is beverage alcohol, or other types of molecular chemicals that have the same basic structure. For example, things like acetone also have a molecular signature, or fingerprint, that looks to the machine very much like an alcohol molecule. So, if you have acetone in your breath, as many diabetics do, as do people on the atkins diet, then the machine will falsely interpret the acetone in your breath as alcohol. This will lead into a false high result.


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