Lighting a house with just one bulb
Is it possible to light a house with just one bulb? I was jokingly brainstorming this with my office mate today and came to the half-serious conclusion that yes, it probably could be done... just not well. The idea is that you'd get an LED light bulb and, presuming that they're as directional as we imagined they are, shine it toward a series of mirrors that bounce the light to the desired locations and then into a prism to refract the light into the room.
My bathroom would provide the beginning of the perfect testing location for this idea. It has a light bar that extends into the doorway and points directly into the bedroom. Theoretically I could replace one of the current CFLs with an LED bulb and bounce it to a mirror that starts a zig-zag pattern of mirrors along the walls near the ceiling into the bedroom straight across the hallway.
While most LEDs that I've seen are fairly directional, it looks like this problem has been mostly solved with the LED globes that are available. That's unfortunate for my situation as I am relying on the light output to be fairly directional so that light is wasted as little as possible while I bounce it around the house. Hopefully something like an LED spotlight would be able to prevent this.
The mirror setup is my next biggest concern. I don't want to use large mirrors that need to be mounted to the walls near the ceiling. I was hoping to use fairly small mirrors, but I would have to use quite a lot of them if I were going to put them close enough to capture and bounce as much as the light as possible. That would be ugly. It would be nice if I could just use 3 or 4, but I won't be bouncing a laser.
I guess the idea isn't really as good as I thought it was and the wife wasn't too keen on me seeing if it was. This is the joy of brainstorming and blogging, getting to play out a scenario in my head and on "paper" (computer?) instead of having to tear up the house and upset the lady.
My bathroom would provide the beginning of the perfect testing location for this idea. It has a light bar that extends into the doorway and points directly into the bedroom. Theoretically I could replace one of the current CFLs with an LED bulb and bounce it to a mirror that starts a zig-zag pattern of mirrors along the walls near the ceiling into the bedroom straight across the hallway.
While most LEDs that I've seen are fairly directional, it looks like this problem has been mostly solved with the LED globes that are available. That's unfortunate for my situation as I am relying on the light output to be fairly directional so that light is wasted as little as possible while I bounce it around the house. Hopefully something like an LED spotlight would be able to prevent this.
The mirror setup is my next biggest concern. I don't want to use large mirrors that need to be mounted to the walls near the ceiling. I was hoping to use fairly small mirrors, but I would have to use quite a lot of them if I were going to put them close enough to capture and bounce as much as the light as possible. That would be ugly. It would be nice if I could just use 3 or 4, but I won't be bouncing a laser.
I guess the idea isn't really as good as I thought it was and the wife wasn't too keen on me seeing if it was. This is the joy of brainstorming and blogging, getting to play out a scenario in my head and on "paper" (computer?) instead of having to tear up the house and upset the lady.
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