Lack of sunlight at this time of year has many people experiencing Seasonal affective disorder (SAD). One way to overcome SAD is to be exposed to bright lights, with this Sun Track project you could reflect bright sunlight into your house where you may otherwise just have a dimly lit room.
"The sunTrack system can reflect the sun in my house and keep the reflection all day. That way it is possible to have a lot of light in my living room which is facing east. The rotor are two DiSEqC H-H Motor SG-2100A for dishes, electronics removed and connected to a cat-5 cable Need only the motor and hall sensor. A DCF receiver sets the time to a timer chip, the pic processor 18F2520 calculates the position of the sun. The reflection position (3 positions possible) is calculated and the mirrors are adjusted every 20 seconds."
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That’s pretty cool! For $300 in parts I can save $12 a year in lighting 🙂
(Alright, I was just kidding… it really is a cool project! – Kudos)
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Can we make it cheaper with some electron-less solution?
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Only morons get “sad” for the rest of the world it’s WDS aka Winter Depression Syndrome
I love the gadget. Now consider having several hundred of those but focus them on a central column and have water flowing through it to a the home to heat it. I’ve also seen a Japanese version that collects sunlight and filters out the UV and pipes the sunlight into the heart of a building. There was some claim of improved worker productivity and the workers complemented them on how well the lighting worked.
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@ mrmeval: So you’re saying that the APA as well as the Mayo clinic are morons? I recommend you look into the Dunning-Kruger effect.
On Topic: I’ve done something similar in the past, albeit not nearly as high-tech, just an experiment with some tin foil and large pieces of cardboard. If the sun is redirected onto the ceiling, it really does give a nice ambient light and lifts the mood of the room. The notion of motorizing with a sun-tracker is pretty cool. Likewise, I’ve seen the fiber-optic light piping that mrmeval references, it’s remarkable as well, the only drawback being that the fibers have to be wired through the ceiling and attic, and new light fixtures put into the ceiling. For a larger scale renovation, it’s definitely worth looking into.
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I like the idea not just for the light, but the power that the sunlight contains. With this setup, reflecting sunlight into your house heats up any surface the light comes into contact with. Perfect for the winter time. You could reduce your heating bill substantially. Reflecting the light onto dark conductive objects would thermally heat the object during the day. At night, the object would give off it’s heat. Awesome project.
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hi,
i need a Programming of Sun’s Positions with C-Compile. Do you have it ?
If yes, can you send to me?
thanks,
baris
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