laser cut chandelier

[Dan Hintz]

What about creating a false ceiling to hide the FO, or squaring off the peak if the roof is peaked?

[Rodne Gold]

The other option or course is not to light the individial pieces of perspex and to built the lighting into the subframe you would have to use to construct the chandelier and hang the pieces off , which would be much simpler , probably as effective and a lot easier to maintain.

[Dan Hintz]

Rodney has something there... if you make the center stalk metal, you can use that for the projector's heatsink and it can be made pretty compact.

[Bill Cunningham]

Not being a lighting guroooo, If I had to 'send' concentrated light over a specified distance, I would be thinking 'laser' to a defined spot on the structural frame that would collect the light, and distribute it through F. Optics to the pieces themselves., perhaps using gel filters to alter the colours.. Like i said, I know nothing about this, Just bouncing things off the neurons here...

[Dan Hintz]

Not being a lighting guroooo, If I had to 'send' concentrated light over a specified distance, I would be thinking 'laser' to a defined spot on the structural frame that would collect the light, and distribute it through F. Optics to the pieces themselves., perhaps using gel filters to alter the colours.. Like i said, I know nothing about this, Just bouncing things off the neurons here...

Lasers are monochromatic (except the ones that aren't ), and any one strong enough to be seen by the naked eye you don't want actually hitting your naked eye.

[Bill Cunningham]

Lasers are monochromatic (except the ones that aren't ), and any one strong enough to be seen by the naked eye you don't want actually hitting your naked eye.

Like I said, just bouncing things off the neurons. Hitting a 'target' with a laser, and having the target distribute the beam through F.O. directly into the acrlyic pieces (with perhaps sanded edges to trap the light) the laser beam itself will not be bouncing around the room, and you would not see the 'raw' beam anywhere. I have seen red and green lasers, are there 'blue' lasers? If so, RGB is a good colour mix ..

[David Fairfield]

Like I said, just bouncing things off the neurons. Hitting a 'target' with a laser, and having the target distribute the beam through F.O. directly into the acrlyic pieces (with perhaps sanded edges to trap the light) the laser beam itself will not be bouncing around the room, and you would not see the 'raw' beam anywhere. I have seen red and green lasers, are there 'blue' lasers? If so, RGB is a good colour mix ..

Funny you mention lasers, actually I tried a red pointer type to get light through a narrow tube to edge-light a small plexiglass part. It worked OK but the light had a peculiar, grainy quality which was unpleasant to look at, plus it wasn't bright at all after it was dispersed inside the plexi.

I'd worry a laser unit with the wattage to illuminate a large entry hall, there would be serious fire and saftey concerns. Not a practical solution without extensive R&D plus safety testing. Cool concept though!

Dave

[Dan Hintz]

Like I said, just bouncing things off the neurons. Hitting a 'target' with a laser, and having the target distribute the beam through F.O. directly into the acrlyic pieces (with perhaps sanded edges to trap the light) the laser beam itself will not be bouncing around the room, and you would not see the 'raw' beam anywhere. I have seen red and green lasers, are there 'blue' lasers? If so, RGB is a good colour mix ..

Lasers can be made with almost any wavelength (depending upon type, of course), and yes, blue lasers exist (ever seen a Blu-Ray DVD player?). You can even find "full-spectrum" lasers that appear white, but are actually several wavelengths mixed together in the same beam... these are usually broken out into their component wavelengths down the line using filters. While it sounds great in theory, the practicality of it all falls on the floor. An enormous amount of energy is spent making the laser light coherent, which in a nutshell means you're throwing away a lot of energy from the radiating atoms that is not going in the direction you want it to. Then you would try to take this coherent light and spread it out again using optics to make it "non-coherent" (what standard bulbs kick out).

Consider it like taking a 120V-to-12V followed by a 12V-to-120V converter just to run your hair dryer. It'll work, but you waste a lot of energy in the process.

[Doug Griffith]

Beyond the light/power technicalities, I can't imagine aligning a laser to the end of a fiber optic cable would be an easy task. Even then, an earthquake or breeze would move the chandelier and put it out of alignment.

[Bill Cunningham]

SEE !! That why I don't do lighting..

[Michael Kowalczyk]

Hey Dave and Doug,
They have lenses that can make it spot or flood and variable in between. Don't know how micro they can go but I saw a "This old House" program maybe 20 years ago and they had the tech back then to do a Total Fiber optic house with one lite unit in the attic and it lit the entire house with several variations of fixtures. I would call around and see what they have now and maybe if you see what the lens looks like you may be able to engineer one right into the acrylic part.

I did buy some cold cathode lights off of EBay to test some fiber optic samples I was given and want to also take it to the next level when I have time. Also try both glass and plastic fiber and see if you can tell the difference in lumen's.
Thanks and ...

[Michael Kowalczyk]

Hey Bill,
If Edison thought like that, we might still be using candles today.
Don't give up that easy.

[Adam Orton]

I have used flickering LED's, the ones used to mimic candles with decent success. I cut acrylic flames like you would find on a hot rod and lit them with the flickering LED's. Perhaps use something like that for the chandelier "candles". I had planned on molding flames to a car dash with programmable and flickering lights.. While on the subject I have done a lot of fiber experimenting, while they are directional I just cut plastic nipples into the acrylic and used heat shrink to attach them then used one LED per five strands.

[Dan Hintz]

Hey Dave and Doug,
They have lenses that can make it spot or flood and variable in between. Don't know how micro they can go but I saw a "This old House" program maybe 20 years ago and they had the tech back then to do a Total Fiber optic house with one lite unit in the attic and it lit the entire house with several variations of fixtures.

That doesn't sound very practical. You still need a certain amount of light going to each room, and you either get it with multiple bulbs in the attic, or you get it with one giant bulb (that's going to be an energy waste and get REALLY hot). The multiple bulb scenario is more likely, but all you've done is move the bulbs from individual sockets in each room to being all in one place. Sounds like more of a "I was the first on the block to do it" type of situation. If it was 20 years ago, it wasn't LEDs, it was metal halide, and those bulbs get HOT. I wonder what that homeowner is thinking about his decision now...

[Bill Cunningham]

Hey Bill,
If Edison thought like that, we might still be using candles today.
Don't give up that easy.

I can't afford to buy a patent like Edison did.
The light bulb was invented by a Canadian named Henry Woodward, who sold his patent to Edison because he couldn't afford to produce it..
I guess we all have to start someplace

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