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Laser-lit home

Like that central heating and A/C? Get central lighting!
  (+1)
(+1)
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against]

In the basement of your home, place a trio of relatively powerful solid-state lasers. Each one fires into a bundle of fiber-optic cables running throughout the walls of your home (naturally, these are jacketed and coated with cayenne pepper or something similar to deter rodents). Just above every room, a few strands from each laser's bundle veer off, go through a servo-controlled iris diaphragm, then mix (producing white light). The resultant beam travels into a diffusing globe on the ceiling of the room and illuminates it.

Advantages: No more replacing lightbulbs, lighting color can be changed by manipulating the amount of each color of light, lasers are more efficient than incandescent bulbs, fiber-optic cabling is cool.

Disadvantages: Expensive, diode life may be limited, intensity of light dubious.

Alternately (if you don't care about multiple lighting colors), you could use a single UV laser and a globe coated with (a) a substance that blocks UV light and (b) a fluorescent material.

I just like the idea of central lighting. Central anything in your house is cool.

Macwarrior, Nov 13 2003

Sulphur Lighting http://fins.actwin.....9611/msg00176.html
Possibly cheaper than lasers [Condiment, Oct 04 2004, last modified Oct 05 2004]

Laser lighting products http://www.del-lighting.com/fixtures.html
[phoenix, Oct 04 2004, last modified Oct 05 2004]

FiberStars EFO http://www.fiberstars.com/
[phoenix, Oct 04 2004, last modified Oct 05 2004]

Band Inc. http://bandinc.net/...chives/rotunda.html
"View the full spherical 360 degree panorama of the United States National Archives' rotunda which is entirely illuminated by a fiber optic lighting system designed by BAND, Inc." [phoenix, Oct 04 2004, last modified Oct 05 2004]

Poly Optics http://www.fiberopt...owfaq.asp?fldAuto=7
More archetectural FO fixtures. [phoenix, Oct 04 2004, last modified Oct 05 2004]

[link]






       We've done the fiber optic cable central lighting thing before, but I think it was using sunlight, not lasers.
DrCurry, Nov 13 2003
  

       Ah, but this one can have multicolored light. And a different color in each room. I'd take a cool blue personally.
Macwarrior, Nov 13 2003
  

       Sounds good (+).
silverstormer, Nov 13 2003
  

       Instead of lasers, you could use sulpher lighting... It's fairly loud, but that doesn't matter because it's in your basement. (link)
Condiment, Nov 13 2003
  

       [phx] Thanks for the great link. Stood in the archives and looked straight up and spun around. Felt like a kid again.
Klaatu, Nov 13 2003
  

       [+] just so I don't have to go to room to room replacing light bulbs and fumbling with those stupid light fixtures that cover the bulbs. E-Z-detach my ass
dickity, Nov 13 2003
  

       When a light in a room goes out, follow the smell of burnt flesh (or fur) ...
Letsbuildafort, Nov 13 2003
  

       No, these lasers are fairly weak - a few watts. You need a MW or more to do some serious damage.
Macwarrior, Nov 14 2003
  

       [Klaatu] Yes, well the point was that laser-fed archetectural lights exist, so this idea shouldn't.
phoenix, Nov 14 2003
  

       Ah well. I wan't aware of that. No matter.
Macwarrior, Nov 14 2003
  

       I like this idea [+]. However, wouldn't something like this mean that you are always using the same amount of electricity to generate light, regardless of how many rooms are occupied at the time?
namuh, Nov 14 2003
  

       Yes, indeed. That is a bit of a problem. But perhaps the lasers could be wired to a switch in each room, which increased or decreased the power as required.
Macwarrior, Nov 15 2003
  
      
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