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I tried making artificial sunlight at home

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Re: I tried making artificial sunlight at home

#151

Post by dekhn »

isoprophlex wrote: post #20
fouronnes3 wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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...

It's not that hard to find decent lenses. I bought a lens with a long focal length and wide aperture from surplusshed.com and installed it into a PVC tube, then attached my camera to it (no lens). I used it for solar observation- a few times, the focused light ended up melting the tube, part of the camera, and anything else it came in contact with.

But it makes more sense to buy a cheap but decent refractor or reflector unless you are truly invested in DIY. there's a lot of fiddly details to get right to get decent image quality.

Re: I tried making artificial sunlight at home

#152

Post by ajolly »

sberens wrote: post #39

Really cool! I'm working on a lamp that gives you daylight levels of light indoors (albeit no raleigh scattering and columnated light). On the bright side (pun intended), it's 50,000 lumens instead of ~4500. https://getbrighter.com/

Nice to see more high quality indoor light options. Any idea how you guys compare to this one? https://getchroma.co/products/skylight. I've got some of their other products - I'm generally been pretty happy with them but they do tend to be fairly pricey.

Re: I tried making artificial sunlight at home

#153

Post by genewitch »

firju55 wrote: post #92
alejohausner wrote: post #41

For me, the problem with this setup (and with most high efficiency LED lights) is the lack of red wavelenghts. Real sunlight has a substantial amount of energy in the very red end of the visible spectrum (700 nm) and also of course quite a bit in the infrared. These lamps have two spectral peaks: a narrow peak in the blue range, around 450 nm, a broader peak in the green, centered around 580 nm. That greenish peak fa…

If the metric you're looking for is most accurate spectrum including deep red, near and far infrared (heat), then a good old incandescent filament light is the most efficient device. Not LEDs.

In the winter a couple incandescent lights per room is often enough to warm it up. I went out of my way this winter to "seal up" my house, and the equivalent of 2-3 bulbs per room is enough to keep them livable - with a sweater and a cap, and maybe socks. I cannot stand artificial heat, something about kt makes me physically uncomfortable, and i just want to leave an area with artificial heat. I'm fine with fires and incadescent bulbs, though.

Re: I tried making artificial sunlight at home

#154

Post by stevage »

reaperman wrote: post #79

I saw "artificial sunlight" and thought "oh wow I'd love to see the spectrogram of the lighting solution this person came up with". I was disappointed to merely see "CRI 95+". https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lH_owRxupC0 This is great video on the shortcomings of "CRI" - it explains in detail CRI, CRI extended, TLCI, TM-30, and SSI. Brightness and color temperature are only two small parts of lighting - more people sh…

Huh, incandescents have been banned here (Australia) for years. Even compact fluorescents are out.

Re: I tried making artificial sunlight at home

#155

Post by stevage »

ajolly wrote: post #152
sberens wrote: post #39

Really cool! I'm working on a lamp that gives you daylight levels of light indoors (albeit no raleigh scattering and columnated light). On the bright side (pun intended), it's 50,000 lumens instead of ~4500. https://getbrighter.com/

Nice to see more high quality indoor light options. Any idea how you guys compare to this one? https://getchroma.co/products/skylight . I've got some of their other products - I'm generally been pretty happy with them but they do tend to be fairly pricey.

Wow, $2000 per lamp, yeah that's pricey.

Re: I tried making artificial sunlight at home

#156

Post by garfield_light »

jclarkcom wrote: post #19

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 s…

Nitpick, but the image in "Innerscene Health Impacts" is very obviously AI generated, besides any personal opinions on GenAI it just looks bad. I suspect photographing the intern will yield something better.

Re: I tried making artificial sunlight at home

#157

Post by dakial1 »

garfield_light wrote: post #156
jclarkcom wrote: post #19

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 s…

Nitpick, but the image in "Innerscene Health Impacts" is very obviously AI generated, besides any personal opinions on GenAI it just looks bad. I suspect photographing the intern will yield something better.

Well, I think the challenge here is that they need to install the lights in all those settings to take the photo and this would be very expensive. The main purpose is to illustrate uses here, not show the final product. Maybe a disclaimer would help.

Re: I tried making artificial sunlight at home

#158

Post by MichaelZuo »

jclarkcom wrote: post #86
cannonpr wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I adore the lights by your company, though they seem to be incredibly hard to source in general except for high end architectural projects. I wish there was an easier way to order them directly for DYI inclined engineers willing to pay the price.

Yeah - channels can be a pain, reach out to me directly if you run into issues: Jonathan @ Innerscene

Why not sell them directly, or via well known retailers, at the highest price point and with the longest warranty?

e.g. McMaster-Carr with a 10 year in-home repair warranty.

And you can still offer discounts via other lower price channels.

Re: I tried making artificial sunlight at home

#159

Post by dakial1 »

jclarkcom wrote: post #19

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 s…

I never heard of this concept until this post, maybe because I live in a sunny country (Brazil) but I can totally see the use case for countries in higher latitudes, as the sun setting at 3pm mist be quite depressing for people. I wonder if you guys did any research on the effects of having your product in these countries. How much would the impact on well being be?

Re: I tried making artificial sunlight at home

#160

Post by neilv »

It you put out enough light, you can diffuse it more, such as by bouncing off the ceiling or a light-colored wall.

You can also use photography modifiers, like the various kinds of reflectors. Even white photo lighting umbrellas (which you shine a bright light through) help a lot.

Whether or not you add diffusing, you might want to make your light source mountable on a photo studio light stand, so that you can position and aim it however you want (just like you would with a studio strobe or hotlight).

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