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25 Comments
- Soave, on 10/12/2007, -0/+6Fiber optic lights can be "wired" in a sense, so you can get sunlight in the middle floors of office buildings.
- JasonHilton, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4Whatever happened to the skylight?
- Disgone, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4http://duggmirror.com/tech_news/Fiber_Optic_Solar_Lighting/
- dbalaski, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3This technology has been around for a while -- I've first seen demos of products like this 10 years ago .. Seems like a good idea to utillize Natural lighting to lighten (no pun intended) the load on the electrical grid (great in peak power periods..)
Not a perfect solution -- as you require some artificial lighting for dark days & nights.
But as long as the ROI is good.... - inmatarian, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Cool idea. Though, when LEDs come into vouge, this might disappear before it's ever caught on.
- Evoguy, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2$10k for 1000 sq ft of lighting seems pretty pricey, hopefully there will be some early adoption from those that can afford it, cause this holds lots of potential. With all the FIOS and other high-quality fiber rollout, I'd expect quality glass fibers to come down in price during the next 5 years anyway, so I'm sure efficiency will take a nice leap.
From optics class I think I remember something about data transmission fibers being tuned to ~1300nm light via doping, so I guess they can't just use data grade fiber, but hopefully the whole fiber process will get cheaper soon. Long haul fiber is probably overkill anyways. - Bob042, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Hmm, sounds like a good idea. It's usually sunniest in the summer, which is also when people use too much electricity for cooling, so maybe this could help eliminate those "blackout days" in the middle of summer.
- hackwrench, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1It's what our eyes were adapted to, before the invention of artificial lighting. I wish people would quit pining for days gone by without realizing it.
- airencracken, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1It's already down after only 68 diggs? Weak.
- flashdude, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2Whatever happened to the skylight?
That's the first thing that came to mind for me as well. Since a window is actually a very short run of very wide fiber optic wire, (lol) this is nothing new. And since it will only work in the day time when the sun is out who needs lights in the middle of the day? Maybe office buildings but that's it. - curtissthompson, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Older article on this same topic, with additional photos here:
http://digg.com/tech_news/Let_There_Be_Light_Cables_Included_Photos - Gooooogler, on 11/02/2009, -0/+1Solar lighting is definitely the way to go although it still does not offer the quality that traditional lighting is offering, read http://lightidea.net/outdoor-lighting/solar-lights ... for more information.
- justhinking, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Acknowledging that all generalizations are questionable at best (yes, that's a generalization!), I'd like to say:
Anything that moves us towards a more sustainable, eco-friendly way of life is rock-on awesome. There is no separating the health of our planet - and all it's inhabitants (air, water, plants, animals, people, rocks, insects) - from the health of anything else. There's also no separating health from this experience called 'life'.
How d'you like them apples? One a day, pesticide free, and who knows where we'd be! (Probably less likely to be dealing with an obesity epidemic.) - mk32066, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Wow, that's a really neat idea, you would save a lot of money that way. And very environmentally friendly!
- Bullsnot, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1ghetto version = window and series of directed mirrors.
Think legend (movie) - nwshc, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2This is pretty cool, and during a nice sunny day would cut back on electricity costs. Naturaly the only drawback is when the clouds are over head.
- UltravioletMars, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1These were the hot tip when I was studying architorture in 1990...
- Urusai, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Glowy tubes!
- zoom1928, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1
What's wrong with skylights? They always leak and require cleaning. I worked in a plant with just over a million square feet for several years, and the number one problem with the facilities were the skylights. Some of them were translucent fiberglass panels in the warehouse, plexiglass in higher traveled portions of the warehouse, glass set into wooden frames above the machinery, and glass set in a nice aluminium frames above the offices. Portions of the plant were built over a fifty year period by at least four different contractors. All four types of skylights were a constant problem. After hurricane Hugo, we scrapped more than 500 tons of cloth due to water leaks despite the fact that we had been doing constant maintenance on the skylights. We did everything we could to try to keep leaks from happening, but they still ruined cloth, machines, computers, and just about everything else in the building.
The advantage of these fiber light systems is that the holes in the roof are much smaller so while they will still leak, it won't be nearly as bad as with a skylight. - agentbob, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1am i the only one trying to remember how long ago i thought about this?
- Bullsnot, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Ahh, for the good old days, when I could just club you and walk away.
- wotsnews, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0This is really cool stuff. Have you seen the Swedish company Parans Solar Lighting's products, http://www.parans.com, seems really cool.
- odganarb, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0My uncle's office has these combined with halogen, and the light levels are automatically adjusted when it's cloudy out to turn the halogens up. On a very bright day though it's very nice for the guys with the cubes in the middle to be able to have some real light.
- SoCalDissident, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1I'm sure there is more than enough light even on most cloudy days; but how do you control the intensity of them? Or how do you turn them off if you are having a meeting and using the PJ? Shades?
With that said, I would think the light quality/color would be much higher. I would love to get some sunlight in my cube instead of artificial light... - theone3, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1You could control the intensity of the light by bending the fiber. When fiber is bent, it lets off some light due to a change in the refractive index. So if you bent the fiber in a black box before it got to you, it would be dimmed.
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