Centralized light source

[Jodeen]

Hiya!

I've had this fantasy stuck inside my head for a couple of years about having a centralized light source in my undersized flat which will provide the main (though not heaviest) portion of lighting to the rooms by means of optical pathways.

However numerous the challenges such a system would pose, I still need some help reasoning this fantasy out of my head :duh2:

Any thoughts?

//JD

 

[AnAppleSnail]

Let's assume you use big heliostats and can punch holes in the wall that range from fist-sized to dinner-plate sized. You watched The Mummy, right?

The Mummy, 1999, with heliostats as imagined by the director.

This scene imagines lighting up a whole underground room with a single beam of sunlight. While impractical, it could probably be made to work...for about five minutes as the sunbeam coming from the ceiling of the underground tomb walked along the floor. The practical difficulties of using mirrors to light things are:

*Practical light paths
*Optical limits
*Many single-failure points that cripple the design
*Houses are not built to be lit
*Tough to do with realistically-sized optics
*Real gain?

The advantages are:
*You could probably use a single 100W short-arc lamp for your whole house
*One bulb to change

Practically speaking, a perfectly clean, vapor-deposited mirror reflects 98-99% of the light that hits it. However, keeping them dust-free is difficult. You could put a car-HID projector bulb in a closet with small mirrors bouncing light around the house, and put diffusers of various sizes in the beam-path to scatter some light into the room. Keeping them all aligned would be tough. Start small:

Find the longest straight path through your house. Get a $10 "Flood To Throw" zoomy light and point it along that path. I suggest using a camera tripod, or duct-tape to the back of a chair. Now put a mirror along this path to shine the fully-focused light where you'll want more light, then start putting a diffuser in the beam path. There are limits with this rough-draft, notably that you may walk through the beam path or intercept it with your eyes. How well does it work?

Most people like diffused light. Near-perfect room light for me is up-aimed LEDs on heat-sink conductive trim around the room. This gives minimum glare, but isn't terribly efficient - not that I care. I don't like counting watts, I like living. What are the efficiency gains in a single-source light? Not much. To decently light a house takes watts and watts, especially if you can't dim fixtures for task lighting.

So:

If you can make a beam path by putting up scads of mirrors or punching holes in walls, it could work. It's kind of crazy, and you'll see all the spiderwebs in those corners. Make sure you plot the concept out well.

Note: This is only one step from using a heliostat outside a window to get daylight all day.

 

[Ken_McE]

I suggest fiber optic bundles that normally run to a light collector on the south wall of your house. At night a 500 watt metal Halide HID bulb extends into the middle of the collector.

We will expect pictures

Oh, and :welcome:

 

[SemiMan]

This is already being done on a commercial scale .. a tracking solar collector feeding fiber optics that then feed into regular fixtures. Electrical losses are less than optical losses to couple from a light source to a fibre, hence it is better to use electrical fixtures.

 

[blasterman]

"Azeed....light!"

Also used with great success in Ridley Scott's "Legend'.

 

[alpg88]

possible, but not too practical for a house. at least with tech of today.

 

[idleprocess]

Only residential use of fiber optic lighting from a central source I've seen is whenever the homeowner wants to be able to alter color at will - a remote source with fiber optic conduits and a color wheel is often the easiest way to do this.