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LEDs Lighting Up the African Darkness
Peace Corps Online writes "In a non-electrified society, life is defined by the sun and little is accomplished once it sets around 6 pm. Only 19 percent of rural areas in Ghana have electricity. The rest use foul-smelling kerosene lamps to light their huts, which pollute, provide little light and are major fire hazards. But now Philips has partnered with KITE, a not-for-profit Ghanaian organization, to bring artificial light to villages that have no electricity. The new Philips products include a portable lantern which provides bright white light where it is needed, the Dynamo Multi LED self-powered (wind-up) flashlight that provides 17 minutes of light from two minutes hand winding, and the 'My Reading Light,' which is a solar-powered reading light with built-in rechargeable battery. 'People can now do things in the evening,' says Harriette Amissah-Arthur, KITE's director. 'If you could only see the joy these products bring the villagers. You look at their faces; you have to see it to believe it.'"
Doesn't the light attract gunfire?
I am the only one who thinks kerosene lamps actually do smell quite nice.
- Raynet --> .
So Philips is the agent of the Devil?
think of this:
"In an electrified society, life is defined by the television and little is accomplished once it starts around 6 pm".
Philips makes lots of TVs too.... case proven :)
My Reading Light? I'm getting annoyed with people naming everything "My xxx". Was this started by Windows? Or was it "My Little Pony". My God. These people should hire some open source developers to name their products.
banning incandescents is stupid. What do you use in the oven?
Indeed! Neither CFLs nor LEDs give off enough heat to work in an oven.
When our name is on the back of your car, we're behind you all the way!
'If you could only see the joy these products bring the villagers. You look at their faces; you have to see it to believe it.'
I bet their eyes light up!
"Congratulations, Boots. Your robot has become self-aware. You're a daddy now." -- Dr. Rho Bowman
Also for developing countries it's a way to cook without using any natural resources.
Except...sunlight...and the materials consumed to make the stove in the first place...
I think you meant to say "non-renewable".
Whoops! Opened my mouth again...
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
You need to count the sunlight that gets spread out by the atmosphere, making that lovely blue sky. Add up the blue sky and the yellow-looking Sun, and you get a bluish-white light.
The result is that natural shadows have a bluish cast. People look more natural outdoors because the shadows of their face get this.
To reproduce, method 1:
Cover your ceiling with an array of colored LEDs that point down. Focus the red and green ones to a 1-degree angle. Spread out the blue ones. Of course, this requires about a million LEDs for a typical room.
To reproduce, method 2:
Get a very high ceiling with bluish-white lights way up high. (mercury, halogen, LED, etc.) Focus the lights into 1-degree downward beams. At a normal ceiling height, add a false ceiling made from aerogel. (possibly with glass to support it) The aerogel acts like atmosphere, spreading the blue more than the red and green.
To reproduce, method 3:
Split the light with a prism, then put it back together without the blue. A couple custom plastic parts over a white LED should do the job. The blue is allowed to leak out the side, unfocused.