Is it possible to design and build a house that can be lit up by using one LED? Assuming that the house has only one floor, (a kitchen, a bathroom, 2 bedrooms, and a living room) that is about 1200sq feet. Is it possible to light up that house? Opinions? Suggestions?
have the inner walls not connected to the ceiling and set up a mirror system? would be a nightmare for privacy though.
Assuming it's powerful enough to shed enough light, have it mounted on the underneath of a toy helicopter with a built in sensor that's programmed to follow you about.
Don't think a 5mm would do. I have a 3 watt LED torch and that can flood a room. The same ones they are starting to use in Higher spec car head lamps. http://www.luxeonstar.com/luxeon-k2-led-white-lambertian-100-lm-1000ma-p-271.php
no, the light angle from an LED is too small so as you get to 60 degree angle you get almost no light. So even if you have a 10000mcd LED it would be bright in the centre of the beam but light would drop off quickly. You could attempt to diffuse the light but it would be more hassle than just installing more LEDs with less power around the house. The Bear.
Originally I was thinking, to set up mirrors all over the place from room to room but it would certainly would be not so private. So that idea was scrapped. It would be kind of cool though to have a light torrent that will follow your every move. By adding a motion sensor and a light to it. Fiberoptics is one thing that I haven't thought of and I think it would be totally awesome that you can put part of a light in one room and in another. Then you could somehow magnify it. My 2nd idea was to disguise the roof with a giant like prism pyramid cut a bit off of the top to fit the magnifyied LED. And supposedly the pyramid will act as a big fresnel lens to magnify it some more and then it will carry the light through out all the rooms. The disadvantage is that the solid prism would be very heavy, and that the opacity of the pryramid would probably be not so great. If the pryramid prism was perfectly clear then no light would fade at all which would be marvelous! So overall I think bassai's method is probably the best one so far. Any others?
I can think of one way. You could build the house such that the light is in the middle room. Every dividing wall could have 6-12" of frosted glass (for privacy) at the top and the light would radiate out from there. You could ceiling-mount mirrors to reflect the light around better and not compromise privacy. I'm no engineer and I'm just typing as I think though, so I've no idea how well it'd work. If you're actually going to build a working model, don't forget to use white paint throughout!
From an engineering perspective the fundamental issue is how you distribute the light from one LED through the house bearing in mind that light emmitted from an LED is finite. Basically the more you try to distribute the light the weaker and less intense it will be. The simplest option is just to get up at sunrise and go to bed at sunset. A solution if you Were dead set on it is actually using optical tubing -the stuff that looks like water pipes but has a very reflective coating on the inside. Set a very high intensity LED up in a chamber with the pipes running from it to take the light to each room. A cheap plastic spherical diffuser on the end of each and that is your house lit.
They've designed a light-input optic to transfer light efficiently. http://www.ledsmagazine.com/features/3/1/2
Very thoughtful ideas everyone! TheCount is pretty much right, for the amount of light that the LED can produce. You would need to make everything around you just as reflective as the inside of optical tubing, into multiple cut squares and stick it on like the ceiling, walls and the floors. The only place that will have walls would be where the bathroom is, and of course around the house. Option of privacy would be limited, unless if you are planning on living by yourself. The LED I could imagine would be just enough to see where you are going as a night light. In the day when the sun is out it'll be hot as a oven. I would recommend having no windows! Heck, I would stick Nano solar cells on the roof and magnify those cells, and on parts of the walls inside and bits on the floor to produce more power. You just might even produce more energy with the LED than it gives out. (if you make everything reflective) and put nano solar cells here and there. Which therefore can power other lights which gives off even more light, which means that it gives you more power!! That is a totally rad idea!!!!! *pats self on the back*
