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Domain: sunlight-direct.com

Stories and comments across the archive that link to sunlight-direct.com.

Comments · 6

  1. Been around since the 80s by Dyne09 · · Score: 2, Interesting · on Pumping Sunlight Into Homes

    This idea is not new at all... I used to work for a company that holds the original patents on this type of technology (http://www.solatube.com/), and has making these types of things since the 80s. Their product was far less obtrusive, and from the inside looked a recessed can-light, and not the transporter deck from the star ship Enterprise. Their overall luminosity was far greater too, and multiple warehouses and factory floors already use this tech. The technology around carrying light through a tubular structure has become pretty efficient, however the size of the roof perforation and the overall ability of the light to turn sharp corners are the big problem. It's basically impossible to feed these things through walls and reach a second floor. Instead, you have go straight down. There is however another company that already came up with the idea of using a solar dish to track light, only, they did it much much much more intelligently. http://www.sunlight-direct.com/ With fiber optics, they can scale down the size of the perforations, go much further distances, and make the lights much less obtrusive. They can even make 90 degree turns (or 180 degree, or 490 degrees if you really wanted too....) with virtually no loss of light. Just stating the obvious...

  2. Re:Uh.. by kylehase · · Score: 1 · on Vertical Farming

    The picture looks like some sort of light collector at the top. Perhaps distributed throughout the building with fiber optics.

  3. Re:Very cool by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0 · on Fiber Optics Bring the Sun Indoors

    http://www.sunlight-direct.com/HSL%20on%20Discover y.wmv

    This Discovery Channel video from their website mentions that the biggest drawback to the technology is that the fibers can only be about 30 feet long. They are typically going to go after retail stores and the top floor of buildings.

  4. Re:That's why it's called 'natural light' by silicon+not+in+the+v · · Score: 1 · on Fiber Optics Bring the Sun Indoors
    I saw this on the Discovery channel, and it's fantastic for commerical space as you can distribute 'natural' light all over the office where windows can't be located.
    Go to the website of this company and they have the video of that Discovery channel segment. It's about 5 minutes long and really does a good job summarising what it's about and showing how it works.

    As to the abundance of comments about the "GPS tracking" to aim the mirror, I think that may be accurate. In the segment, he refers to it as a "GPS microprocessor" that can "calculate the exact position of the sun to within 0.1 degree." Since this is going to be a generic system that can be sold anywhere, it would be good to have GPS in the system just so the system itself can know where it is. With that information, it would then just be a little calculation in the microprocessor to track the known path of the sun from that location. Yes, this could be done without GPS if each system were hard-coded with its final installed coordinates at the factory, but that doesn't work well to produce these without knowing where they will end up.
  5. It's all in beta by The+Fun+Guy · · Score: 1 · on Fiber Optics Bring the Sun Indoors

    On their products page they give a few items, but they are all listed as "System Available for Beta-Testing Only". Not exactly designed to inspire confidence.

    1. Get a product into beta.
    2. Distribute it as a beta, with no warranty.
    3. ********
    4. Profit!

    Just becasue it works for Google doesn't mean it will work with anything.

  6. Caution: Advertisement by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0 · on Fiber Optics Bring the Sun Indoors

    Says "Increases Productivity" and "Increase Sales"
    How does light do that?
    Is it cover by their warranty?
    http://www.sunlight-direct.com/warranty.html