Artificial Sunlight (official topic) – Page 3 – Lighting and LEDs

Life got quite complicated on my end, which is why I dropped out of this conversation, but I glad to drop in and find this project continues to develop. 

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@nolo, thanks again for all your contributions! And everyone else's as well.

I didn't know there were any companies making this sort of artificial sunlight. After checking out that website you suggested, Yuji Lighting, I did some more Googling, and found that there's dozens of companies making artificial sunlights utilizing Rayleigh scattering and collimation. The other thing they all have in common is that they're selling them prohibitively expensive. And now that we know how the trick is done, we can see that Coelux's offering is absurdly overpriced.

It really makes me appreciate, more and more, the value of our DIY world. A company like Coelux seeks to benefit only their wallets, and when watching their videos, you can see how they gatekeep this technology by making it seem like it's beyond the reach of the common person to be able to understand and replicate their results, requiring $40,000 of expertise and specialized manufacturing to create a single panel.

Good for them for their success. I wish most people could succeed in their living to the degree that they have. But for someone like me, who sees the significant and critical value that this sort of lighting can bring to hundreds of millions of people, those of us stuck having to spend most our time indoors with little or no sunshine, and suffering the consequences of it to our wellbeing, by making this technology more economical and therefore commonplace, I see this project of democratizing this technology as not only fun, but also a noble undertaking.

@diyperks On that note, Matt, I have to say that the warmth, vibrancy and brightness of the light you created in that video perfectly reflects those same qualities in your character. Here's to you, and your work. 

I would like to go in further on some of the reasons why I think this lighting is such a big deal, and I would love to hear what you guys think.

First of all, the aesthetic and practical quality of sunlight mimicking lamps (SML) is superior to anything that exist currently for most indoor lighting. This could replace the use of light boxes for treating seasonal affective disorder and circadian rhythm regulation, if the light intensity can deliver 10,000 lux at eye level. But I think we could all agree that even just the look of this light, as Matt has demonstrated is his video, and what I like to call the "Heaven's Gate" effect, is just as relevant to the positive psychological impact this light can deliver.

I can remember being charmed by the light of those lamps that dentist use, whenever I've visited the dentist office, which, now I understand, are parabolic reflectors. They're so soothing.

This sort of light can also function as a cutting edge grow light. As far as I can tell, grow lights never incorporate any measures to collimate the light, which is an odd oversight when you think about it. Growers resort to lowering or raising their lamps to keep them suspended a few inches above the plants, continually adjusting the height as a plant grows. The lamp being just a few inches too high or low is the difference between either losing most of the usable light (even when surrounding the plant in reflective surfaces), or burning the leaves with too much light. 

Collimating the light source would make this practice unnecessary, since the light's intensity delivered to a given area remains the same many feet away. 10,000 lux is perfect for any indoor plant. Assuming the CRI rating of the LEDs used are on point, a 40,000 lux light could grow full-sun plants.

All this while also being able to contribute to the ambient lighting of a room in the most power efficient and aesthetically pleasing manner possible.

@orphouille Awesome! Thanks for that contribution, this could be a critical find. Although, maybe you can clarify for me: Recreating the Tyndall effects is also something that I've been very interested in. My understanding is that it describes the appearance of beams of light traveling through clouds of particles like water droplets or dust in the air, where as Rayleigh scattering involves the gasses in the air. What's being reproduced in that video seems to be Rayleigh scattering. 

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@sunnerai The difference in these two videos is that in first one, while it does create a collimated light source, it doesn't recreate the look of a sunspot, or the blue Rayleigh scattering effect of the sky.

@noah I agree, the color changing effect likely could only be done by using two different color temperature lights in the setup, like those Phillip LED bulbs that change to a warmer color temperature when dimmed. I guess what I was trying to understand is exactly why does the sky change color with the change of the Sun's position, since Rayleigh scattering is also involved in this effect. I was thinking that maybe if we can describe more precisely how this works, maybe that info can be utilized in the design of this SML.

By the way, my goal of cladding an entire ceiling with these light panels has changed to creating faux skylights, lengths of light panels with a glass pyramid style skylight enclosure below it, to further the look of a realistic skylight. Like this-

This post was modified 2 years ago by Devfoxrocks

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