Sunlight Direct: More Piped Sunshine
by Dominic Muren, Philadelphia, USA on 06.28.05
When Edison designed the cheap electric lightbulb, he opened up a whole Pandora's box of good and bad -- good, because people could now work without being slaves to the whims of the sun, but bad because years later, we have forgotten how wonderful sunlight can be. Studies have shown that sunlight causes less eyestrain and helps reduce the effects of Seasonal Affect Disorder, in addition to making color rendition of objects more natural (by definition). With that in mind, Sunlight Direct has emerged as the latest company bringing real sunlight to the indoors with optic fiber piping...
Unlike the Parans system which we blogged earlier, Sunlight Direct uses a parabolic collector to gather light into a cable of fibers(Parans uses a bank of lenses to focus light into optic fibers). This might make the system easier to install, since it's basically a satellite dish, rather than the larger Parans system which requires roof brackets like solar paneling. On the other hand, keeping the reflecting mirror clean presents its own challenges. Sunlight Direct's system allows for mixed-source lights, so one collector can be "stretched" by mixing the piped sunlight with florescent tubes in single fixtures. This also smooths outages from cloudy days. The system is still in beta testing, but interested builders and lighting professionals can contact the company for more information. :: Sunlight Direct
I wonder if there are any plans to retrofit (or at least use parts from) old and unused home satellite dishes as the basis for this product....
I should calrify that that thing you see there is about 16" in diameter, so there's not a lot of commonality with home satellite dishes. (Also, the optimal focus of the parabola would need to be different, and it needs to track and move throughout the day in the way that those DirecTV dishes do not.) What might have more commonality would be "goto" type home telescopes.
Great idea!In addition to directing sun light to rooms, what about using solar panels for storing the light energy and using it when sun light gets dim? (ofcourse the distribution of light shall be through the optical fiber guide, in both cases..)
"strips away the infrared and ultraviolet components"
anyone know how this would effect the color spectrum for growing plants indoors