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I tried making artificial sunlight at home

victorpoughon.fr

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Re: I tried making artificial sunlight at home

#11

Post by ericmcer »

woah wrote: post #7

Would it be possible to make it look like the light was coming in at an angle from above and the side like real sunlight?

There was a project posted here awhile ago with something similar, but the light was larger and he positioned it outside a fake window with a curtain across it.

Re: I tried making artificial sunlight at home

#13

Post by j_bum »

hinkley wrote: post #10
woah wrote: post #7

Would it be possible to make it look like the light was coming in at an angle from above and the side like real sunlight?

I’ve seen the video he links at the top of the article, a few years back. They took an old satellite dish, silvered the surface, and put a giant LED where the receiver had been so the light produced was nearly parallel. Otherwise the shadows look wrong. In his case he sacrificed a doorway or a closet to make a window with “real light”

I was thinking of the same video! Link:

https://youtu.be/6bqBsHSwPgw?si=nV7nGdRhGvkivc1p

Re: I tried making artificial sunlight at home

#14

Post by dylan604 »

astrange wrote: post #5
NotGMan wrote: post #2

Those in dark winter places can check this out for a home bright light setup. Some people report much better mood in dark winter days: https://meaningness.com/sad-light-led-lux https://meaningness.com/sad-light-lumens Buy a cheap lux meter if you will be doing this since otherwise you are flying blind.

This definitely helps for me, but it's hard to place the lights without glare, since they can't be anywhere that's ever directly in your vision! I'm also a little worried it's going to burn the houseplant near it. But it was a big change; my Silicon Valley apartment has little overhead lighting, and I mostly use Hue lights which just don't get very bright, so it turned out I'd accidentally built a depression cave in…

Personally, I hate overhead lighting and much prefer lamps or wall sconce type of lighting. I did replace my overhead bulbs with Hue bulbs, but I don't feel the not very bright aspect. My overhead bulbs are most often at 25%. Anything over 50% is just too much for me. I love my Hue lights and am trying to switch over to all Hue bulbs. I still have a few regular bulbs in places that just don't get a lot of use, so they get ignored

Re: I tried making artificial sunlight at home

#16

Post by fouronnes3 »

softbuilder wrote: post #12

This is a great build and report. Even though you don't have great photo gear, you should try capturing a picture of steam in the light (as DIY Perks did).

That's a great suggestion, thanks! I'll give it a try. It already works with dust quite well though, hehe.

Re: I tried making artificial sunlight at home

#19

Post by jclarkcom »

Very cool. I’m the CEO of Innerscene (https://innerscene.com) and we make a commercial artificial skylight that uses some of these concepts. Actually the coelux ht25 model is almost identical to what you made but using smaller lenses and more LEDs - however the effect they were able to achieve still isn’t that great, the sun looks like a giant orb and once you get a few feet away you can make out a sun at all. We spent a lot of time working on perfect collimation and hiding lens edges and making sure the view into the sky was seamless and artifact free. I’d say the last 10% of that problem is 90% of the work. :). I think we successfully cracked the nut but currently using a lot of expensive parts so working on brining the cost down. If you search Innerscene patent many of our approaches are spelled out. We also spent a lot of time on simulation and software…

Re: I tried making artificial sunlight at home

#20

Post by isoprophlex »

fouronnes3 wrote: post #17
brcmthrowaway wrote: post #15

Wait, you can order custom fabrication of lenses online?

Turns out you can yeah! I'm not sure the quality would be anything useful for imaging applications though. But for lighting / non-imaging stuff go for it!

Well, there goes my idea of DIYing a telescope...
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