Pumping Sunlight Into Homes

ByronScott sends a snippet from Inhabitat that begins "What if you could light your entire building using no electricity or artificial lights – but just the natural light from our favorite star, the Sun? Enter the Sundolier, a powerful sunlight transport system that's like putting a solar robot on your roof to pump sunlight indoors. The manufacturer claims a single Sundolier unit can provide enough light to illuminate a 1,000-2,500 sq. ft. area [93-232 sq. m] without any other sources." The company's website is a bit thin on details, such as what happens on cloudy days, or how many days of sunlight per year on average are needed for the device to perform acceptably.

Comments

There are no details

[BobPaul]

It's thin on the details because there are no details. This is just a flexible aluminum tube and a diffuser. The only thing different about this than the kits you can get at Menards is the big collector array which tracks the sun.

There's no solar panels in this system. On cloudy days, you use electric lighting.

Our Sundolier delivers sunlight so effectively that electric lighting can be turned off when the sun is out offering excellent opportunities to save electricity while reducing heat generation through cool indirect daylighting.

There's no mention anywhere, not in the inhabitat.com article, nor the companies website, that this does anything on cloudy days.

Re:There are no details

[Lumpy]

Sweet a hypochondriac geek.

If you are worrying about the tiny bit of VOC's from your houses wiring, then I better not tell you about what your carpet and the wood in your house is outgassing. or the paint on the walls (yes even the "enviro-junk" they sell to try and placate people like you).

The wiring puts out far FAR less than many other sources in a home even a LEEDS certified green home. Natural woods gas out nasties if you want to go looking for nasties.

Oh and dont get me started about the impurity of the gypsum in your wall board.....

what a great idea!

[cnkurzke]

this works amazing, we should find a new name for this revolutionary device, how about we call it a WINDOW????

only downside, it doesnt work when it's needed most, namely AT NIGHT, when it's dark.

Maybe WINDOWS version 2.1 will fix that??

Re:what a great idea!

[Vinegar Joe]

only downside, it doesnt work when it's needed most, namely AT NIGHT, when it's dark.

That's not a bug.....it's a feature.

Re:what a great idea!

[feepness]

Yes, but I've been banned from training monkeys to move the mirrors and the slaves keep going blind. Never trust a blind slave to shave you...

The sighted monkeys aren't such a great idea either.

50W lightbulb using a common 2L Bottle

[Hadlock]

This has been done in the 3rd world for ages. You drill a hole in your roof, mount a 2L soda bottle filled with water (and two cap-fulls of bleach to keep it clean and clear), and stick an old black plastic film canister overtop of the white lid to keep the plastic from degrading. The video of these in use is amazing. Sadly however it only works when the sun is up - which is most of the workday (12 hrs typically) in the tropics.
 
Watch it in action. Wow. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_zMAWztZ6TI

Re:50W lightbulb using a common 2L Bottle

[value_added]

Maybe you're the person to ask ...

Some years back I stopped for a meal at a restaurant in the historical district of a small town here in California. The restaurant was a converted barn of some sort and had two large double doors for an entrance. During business hours, those doors were left open, as were another set of interior doors that led to an open air patio outside. Hanging on the wall by each sets of doors was a large 1-quart ziplock bag. The bag was filled with water.

Noticing the bags, I asked the owner about them. She told me they were there to keep the flies from coming into the restaurant. I asked how a water-filled bag worked to keep flies away, and she said, "No idea, but do you see any flies in here?" Indeed, there were no flies to be seen (though there were some outside). She went on to tell me that that they had a regular fly problem years back, and one day a local immigrant gardner suggested the bags. The rest, as they say, is history.

I'd guess an entomologist might be the one to ask, but have you heard of this technique being used?

Re:50W lightbulb using a common 2L Bottle

[masterQba]

http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/1956/whats-the-purpose-of-bags-of-water-hanging-in-restaurants/ The water bag acts as a lens that enhances movement. The flies react to the movement - they stay away.

Bradbury story

[wisebabo]

There was a story by Bradbury (sorry slow internet here don't want to look it up) where they had "picture" windows made of glass(?) with an extremely(!) high index of refraction. These windows had been left out in some scenic location (African savannah) and because the velocity of light was so slow through the glass, it would take years for the light to get through! Thus a "perfect" 3D display of whatever the window had been exposed to.

Sounds (extremely) farfetched but in "light" (ha ha) of the discovery of a method to slow down or even stop light (admittedly in a Bose-Einstein condescent in a near perfect vacuum just above absolute zero), it is not entirely fantasy. Not entirely.

Re:From their website ...

[thsths]

> Wow ... "increase the speed of learning?"

Actually that is an important point. Most artificial light is so poor that it hinders whatever you try to do. It is well known how to produce better lighting, but it is just not done. When was the last time you experienced lighting that can adjust the color temperature, for example? That is quite an essential feature to keep your day rhythm working properly, and it has been shown to improve learning results significantly.

Re:Bradbury story -- it was Bob Shaw

[andrewbaldwin]

I think you mean "Other Days, Other Eyes" by Bob Shaw

Thanks for reminding me -- I read it many years ago and enjoyed it - may re-read it now :-)

It also appeals to another Slashdot meme - an evil government using crop-dusters to sow millions of shards of 'slow glass' to act as passive surveillance.

This one goes around corners

[Anonymous Coward]

Something like this one: http://www.sunlight-direct.com/ uses fiber optic cables to catch the sunlight and then send it around corners/to other floors/etc. It also doesn't work at night . . . yet. But throw in a few undersea cables (interlight backbone) and we could have a daylight exchange program with nations on the other side of the planet.

What distinguishes this from, say, Solatube?

[GlenRaphael]

When I had a house built back in 1998, "Solatube" lighting was one of the build options. From this pictures, this looks like the same thing with a slightly different input lens for a system like this:

http://www.solatube.com/residential/product-catalog/brighten-up-series/index.php

I bought one to brighten a dark bathroom. It was nice. pretty much the same effect as a skylight, but it worked even where there was an attic in the way that would make a standard skylight unworkable.

Sunpipes are old news

[petes_PoV]

Though this one, looks far too complicated, with it's solar tracker 'n' all. Too much to go wrong for what has generally been considered a simple solution due to it's low-tech approach at getting light into a space.

However they all suffer from the same drawbacks. You want lighting when it's dark - not (just) during the day, so you still have to install conventional lighting too. Plus they aren't so good when it's cloudy. They also pump in all the solar heat as well as the light so you use more energy than you save cooling the place down.