Fiber Optic Lighting

[Breaking Wind]

I work with a bunch of Engineers and we're always coming up with hair-brained schemes in the office.  One of the ideas that one guy came up with was a lighting system for your house where you only have one true emitting light source with fiber optic cables routed from that light source to rooms/locations throughout your house.  So essentially, you'd only have one lightbulb lighting up your entire house.  Has anyone ever heard of this?  I have another friend who's seen this done with pool lighting with a color wheel to change the colors but I've never heard of it for traditional home lighting applications.  I have to believe that this would save a lot of energy.

By the way....Breaking Wind is also the name of my sailboat.

Mike

"Always go to other people's funerals; otherwise, they won't go to yours." (Yogi Berra)

[Flying Z]

Yeah, i've seen this on tv. They used a Solar concentrator for the light source. Can't remember the show but I think it was This Old House.

[drdongle]

Seems to me that if that light source failed the entire house would be with out light, a potentially dangerous situation.

[ignesandros]

This system would be highly inefficent with current fiberoptic technology. In order to light a whole house, you'd need a fairly powerful light source, which would inherently lose much of its luminance where fibers aren't directing it. Additionally, the optical fibers themselves are expensive and require complicated coupling. I fail to see any advantage for fiberoptic lighting over, say, EL lighting or compact flourescent lighting.

-Andrew

[ghurd]

I remember a Kent State U. studend received a grant to do research on it back in about 1985. Primarily related to solar light in office type buildings. Don't recall his name.  Hardly a new idea, so there must be problems.

A 100 lumen bulb only makes 100 lumens. Split it between 100 rooms is only 1 lumen per room.

[pyrocasto]

There is a nice fiber optic solar light available. It use a concentrator to put the light in the fiber optics which is then run to the room, and into the fixture. At night time, lights come on so it stays the same luminance in the room all day long. Really cool but expensive setup.

One main light source though, I dont see as being pratical.

[mikey ny]

Hey there breaking wind, something smells funny about that name. I think you may be onto something here. If it would work with a good light source maybee it could be powered by a couple PV panels. Sounds like a great winter project while the sail boat sits in drydock, unless you are into ice sailing, which is an extreme adventure, you should try it some time.

                                       

[hotwired]

Where can about 5 feet of fiber optic cable be found.

[ghurd]

Arts & Crafts shops have some. Some cars are using it in the dash lighting.

There seem to be 2 kinds, VERY expensive, or very cheap.

[pyrocasto]

Ebay.

[ghurd]

Circuit Specialists.  10 meters start at $3 for 0.010 and 0.020". Up to 10 meters of 0.080" for $35.

http://www.web-tronics.com/newparuncon.html

G-