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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

#111

Post by jclarkcom »

aftbit wrote: post #101
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…

Are there any high-resolution photos of these panels in real spaces? I can only find renders.

here is an example install, this is not a render (the window is real but the skylight is not) https://www.innerscene.com/gallery/residential-virtual-sun

Here is a video showing the units suspended in the air https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/e0p4rsx31cqag42cklc61/A7_free...

Re: I tried making artificial sunlight at home

#112

Post by alejohausner »

fouronnes3 wrote: post #42
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…

That's a good point, but not much I can do about that. Such a DIY project is limited to off the shelf LED suppliers. It would be cool to do such a lamp with both the high CRI and some infrared, also for heating (infrared lamps are a thing after all).

I don’t think manufacturers will make LEDs with strong deep-red emission. If they made LEDs that emitted lots of red light, they probably would have a peak in the red end of the spectrum. But since they’re not monochromatic single-wavelength sources like lasers, there would be a spread of wavelengths around that red peak, including substantial infrared emission. And that IR emission makes heat, and now you’ve created an inefficient lamp, similar to the old incandescent filament lamps.

Re: I tried making artificial sunlight at home

#113

Post by alejohausner »

zokier wrote: post #106
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…

> 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 falls off sharply, and has almost no energy in the red end Check figure 1h in the datasheet of the LEDs author used https://otmm.lumileds.com/adaptivemedia/832eef99dd3139f98fa9... The second peak is near 650nm and while it drops fairly quickly there is still de…

Yes, I saw those spectra. No, I don’t see very much energy emitted for wavelengths >700 nm.

If you look at spectra for stereotypical crappy white LEDs, they’re really no different. Everyone uses the same light emitting compounds, it seems to me.

Re: I tried making artificial sunlight at home

#114

Post by atombender »

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…

Was the skylight in the season 25 episode of Grand Designs [1] made by your company?

[1] https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x97hx8g (from 39 mins in)

Re: I tried making artificial sunlight at home

#115

Post by softgrow »

I built a very bright light source using a lamp stand from Ikea and the brightest, narrowest beam LED reflector I could find from my big box hardware store. The project works and gave about 10,000 lux but had a few drawbacks. After reading a book for a while a got a headache. The slightest imperfection (read dirt) in the arms of the armchair becomes super obvious. When I look at my right arm holding the book, it's so bright I'm sure I can see veins and arteries. I ended up getting a lamp less bright and that's great for sewing/electronics/fine work but there are limits for how bright you might want to go indoors. I kept the too bright globe for demonstration purposes.

Re: I tried making artificial sunlight at home

#116

Post by reaperman »

jclarkcom wrote: post #105
reaperman wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm very impressed that Innerscene provides LM-63 data for your artificial skylights. Is there any chance you'd be open to providing Spectral Similarity Index scores for your skylight? I think it would really differentiate your product and show how much your company cares about quality.

We provide full 1nm resolution SPDs in our download section so you can do any kind of calculations you want. Worth noting the SPDs change a lot depending on the color temperature of the light. In terms of similarity, trying to match sunlight exactly is not ideal because UV is bad for you and IR is a lot of water energy that can be produced in other ways more efficiently. For energy efficiency we focus on the spectrum…

Thank you! I’m sorry I overlooked those files. I greatly appreciate this perspective and research.

It’s clear that your company leaves no stone unturned.

Re: I tried making artificial sunlight at home

#117

Post by ecolonsmak »

MrMcCall wrote: post #103

Years ago, I remember seeing that a firm was using fiber optic bundles to bring sunlight in from the roof into the inner spaces of an office building. Does anyone know anything about that?

I've been tracking that on and off for years - https://parans.com/

Not sure it's really caught on, but it's out there

Re: I tried making artificial sunlight at home

#118

Post by crossroadsguy »

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…

Not joking. Do these artificial sunlights help with the allergies? If yes and if it's not insanely costly I'd just try to get something like that for my bedroom during allergy seasons which most often coincides with no sun (winter, rain here). Even in those seasons when the sun comes out in its glory, the allergies (which mostly is my nose turning into an infinite source of salt water), which were driving me stark raving mad since days - at times weeks, might just vanish within an hour. Yeah, w/o even stepping into the sun. (And no, I am not D deficient.)

Re: I tried making artificial sunlight at home

#119

Post by stavros »

dan-robertson wrote: post #47
sheepscreek wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

“Virtual Sun” looks really cool. How much does one cost today? Say if someone wanted to buy a single piece or a few (2-3).

Pricing is ‘contact us’ and going to be region-dependent. I would expect to pay ca $ 10^4.5 for a panel that produces the ‘virtual sun’ effect. Same goes for competitors (I know of Coelux but maybe there are others. Not sure how quality/price compares). But maybe GP will reply to you.

10^4.5 = 31622.77

Re: I tried making artificial sunlight at home

#120

Post by jclarkcom »

crossroadsguy wrote: post #118
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…

Not joking. Do these artificial sunlights help with the allergies? If yes and if it's not insanely costly I'd just try to get something like that for my bedroom during allergy seasons which most often coincides with no sun (winter, rain here). Even in those seasons when the sun comes out in its glory, the allergies (which mostly is my nose turning into an infinite source of salt water), which were driving me stark ra…

Hmm, never heard that before, I’ll have to research it more. Maybe the UV from sunlight is killing something you are allergic to. We don’t have UV for safety and energy efficiency reasons but you could try buying some strong UV lamps and see if that helps. Ideally you turn them on when you are out of the room so they don’t damage your eyes or cause cancer.
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