Wish you had a skylight, but don't have the ability to cut a hole in your roof? MAKE subscriber Chris did to, and wrote in to share his solution to the problem: a pv+led-based 'fake' skylight. The concept is pretty simple, but with a nice result. He had some unused capacity on his PV (photovoltatic) solar panel, and basically hooked up a bunch of high power LEDs directly to it. To achieve the 'skylight' look, he built a custom metal box with a glass diffuser screen, and mounted the diodes inside of it. He has a nice write-up on his site, along with a calculator to determine how the LEDs should be connected. Excellent work!
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Wish you had a skylight, but don't have the ability to cut a hole in your roof? MAKE subscriber Chris did to, and wrote in to share his solution to the problem: a pv+led-based 'fake' skylight. The concept is pretty simple, but with a nice result. He had some unused capacity on his PV (photovoltatic) solar panel, and basically hooked up a bunch of high power LEDs directly to it. To achieve the 'skylight' look, he built a custom metal box with a glass diffuser screen, and mounted the diodes inside of it. He has a nice write-up on his site, along with a calculator to determine how the LEDs should be connected. Excellent work!
Posted by Matt Mets |
Nov 6, 2009 01:00 PM
Electronics, Green |
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make_magazine:http://blog.makezine.com/archive/2009/11/fake_skylight_uses_solar_panels_to.html
Setting up fiberoptic cabling with a diffuser would allow for a skylight that actually fluctuates with the lighting conditions outside. Place a focusing lens outside (or mounted to the corner of a window if you don't want to drill the hole for the cable), run the cables through the ceiling, and then use the reverse lens plus glass like shown above, and you've got a real skylight (with fluctuating lighting effect), without the hole in your roof.