RU2468288C1 - Solar self-directing fibre optic lighting device - Google Patents

Abstract

FIELD: electricity.

SUBSTANCE: device contains collector consisting of housing, focusing lens in the form of ellipse and two focusing large and small mirrors. Lens and mirrors narrow solar light flux and direct it to inlet end face, expanding in the form of focon, of fibre optic cable during the whole light day. Fibre optic cable of special design, which inlet end face is designed as focon, narrows light flux and directs collector to the sun. Inlet flexible focon has special external segmental layer made of toned material with high coefficient of thermal expansion. Such design of focon allows it to bent as bimetallic strip, direct focusing assembly (collector) to the sun.

EFFECT: increasing efficiency due to reduction of aperture and increase of incidence angle of light beams on inlet end face of fibre optic cable especially in the morning and in the evening, and providing high electrical safety even in rooms with high humidity.

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Description

The invention relates to the field of household lighting, and in particular to devices for lighting residential and non-residential premises without windows (basements, corridors, hallways, bathrooms and toilets, as well as mines, mines, pools, aquariums, etc.) .

Well-known lighting devices - electric lamps - have significant drawbacks: relatively high energy consumption, electrical and fire hazard, short life, narrow frequency spectrum of emitted light waves.

Currently, natural daylight is increasingly used for lighting. One such solution is the anti-aircraft lights. However, anti-aircraft lights are expensive and can only be used on the upper floors of buildings.

More recently, they began to use a hybrid fiber optic device in direct sunlight (http://ecomssia.info/ru). This device is intended for direct supply of natural daylight into the illuminated rooms. It consists of parabolic mirrors (collector) focusing the sun's rays into the input end of the fiber optic cable, transporting the light further into the illuminated room. Part of the light energy is then converted into electrical energy, which is accumulated and used for the positioning system and power supply of lamps at night. The positioning system rotates the mirrors throughout the day, constantly directing them to the sun. The presence of a tracking system for the sun, a rotary motto suspension bracket requires external power supplied from the network or obtained from the conversion of light energy into electrical energy. This is a complex and expensive device. As follows from the description, the cost of such a system reaches 16 thousand dollars, and its installation ranges from 500 to 2000 dollars. High cost, complexity, the need for external power supply are the main disadvantages of these systems.

The closest analogue of the claimed device is a solar fiber-optic lighting device (Patent for utility model No. 102747, priority 09/28/2010), taken as a prototype. This device does not have a sun tracking system. Its collector is stationary and fixed on the roof or solar wall of the house. Sunlight in the collector is supplied with a special fixed lens and a conical glass funnel (focon) to the input end of the fiber optic cable. The luminous flux is transported through a fiber optic cable, and from the other end of this cable located in a dark room, the light is scattered using a scattering lens, illuminating this room. The device is greatly simplified, since the need for positioning the focusing unit (collector) during daylight hours disappears, there is no electricity consumption, the device’s service life is significantly increased, and its operation safety is significantly increased. However, the collector of this device, due to its simplicity due to its high aperture, has worse characteristics compared to hybrid systems. Such a device works most effectively in the afternoon, when the sun is at its zenith and the direction of the sun's rays almost coincides with the direction of the focon axis. In the morning and evening hours, when the sun's rays fall on the input end of the focon at a large angle to the axis of symmetry of the focon, the fraction of reflected light energy increases significantly (due to a small angle of incidence and a large aperture) and the efficiency of the device rapidly decreases.

The technical result of the claimed device is to improve the focusing characteristics of the collector and increase the time of effective operation of the device during daylight hours. This technical result is achieved in that the input expanding end of the cable serves as an element for mounting the collector and its positioning in space in the direction of the sun, as well as a focal point for narrowing the luminous flux. In addition, in the inventive device to reduce the aperture, the focusing of the light flux is carried out successively three times. First, the solar flux narrows with a special elliptical lens, and then with the help of two parabolic elliptical mirrors (large and small). Therefore, the rays entering the focon are almost parallel to each other, and their direction practically coincides with the axis of symmetry of the input part of the focon.

Figure 1 presents the inventive device, intended for illumination in the daytime with natural sunlight of dark rooms in an ordinary residential apartment. The focusing unit of the device consists of a focusing lens (1), a housing (2), a large focusing mirror (3), a small focusing mirror (4). This unit is fixed on the input focus - the expanding end of the fiber optic cable (5), which is fixed on the roof of the house or on the south side of the house with the help of a mounting device (6). At the other end of the fiber optic cable (7) there is a scattering lens (8), which is placed in the illuminated room. The outer shell of the focone (10) is made of tinted material with a high coefficient of thermal expansion in the form of individual segments isolated from each other by heat-insulating reflective partitions (9). Partitions prevent heating from a light spot (12), unlit segments, and a transparent light-conducting core of the focon (11). Moreover, the light spot in shape and size should coincide with the input end of the transparent light-conducting core of the focon.

A stream of light focused by a lens and mirrors enters the input end face of the focon (5). If the collector is not directed towards the sun, then the light spot is not located in the center of the focal area (see section AA). In this case, the asymmetric luminous flux of the infrared (IR) range heats segments (10) of tinted material with a high coefficient of thermal expansion transmitting infrared radiation. The illuminated segments heat up and lengthen, bending the focon towards the sun, until the light spot is in the center of the end. The luminous flux of the visible spectrum passes through the transparent core of the focon (11), tapering to the size of the fiber optic cable (7), passes through the cable, enters the scattering lens (8) and, evenly distributed, illuminates the dark room. Thus, the "cold" sunlight of the visible range is transported into a dark room without any conversion to other types of energy. The focone bends under the influence of temperature, like a bimetallic plate, and constantly directs the focusing device to the sun, as a well-known sunflower does. In this case, the direction of the sun's rays always coincides with the axis of the input part of the focon. The input end face of the focon is always perpendicular to the sun's rays. Therefore, almost all light energy penetrates into the focal area, but is not reflected from it. The device does not consume electricity at all, which ensures its high efficiency.

The reliability of this lighting device is very high, since it does not have electric drives, it does not contain moving rubbing parts that require lubrication, and it does not depend on various kinds of electric lamps, power supply systems, electronic converters, switches, etc. With good transparency, the details of the lighting device practically do not heat up (except for the illuminated segments of the focon), eliminating the possibility of sparks from a short circuit, thereby achieving a high level of safety during its operation.

The retail price of such a simple and reliable lighting device is very small. And the specifications are close to a hybrid fiber optic device. The service life of such a device depends on the optical and mechanical properties of the materials used and is several times longer than the service life of gas discharge lamps, and especially incandescent lamps.

You can also reduce the cost of the device when creating mass production, the feasibility of which is easily predicted by the large guaranteed demand for such products. Many structural elements of this device can be made of plastic, especially since the technology of metallization of plastic surfaces has already been mastered. This will provide devices with lightness, reliability and low cost. This device is most applicable in southern areas with a large number of sunny days per year.

Claims (1)

A solar homing optical fiber lighting device comprising a focusing lens, a mirror housing, a mounting device, a fiber optic cable and a diffusing lens, characterized in that it contains a large and small ellipsoid focusing mirrors that sequentially narrow the luminous flux to the size of the transparent light-conducting core of the input end face of the flexible guiding background which is a continuation of the fiber optic cable, and the light-conducting core, focone is located inside the layer of segments, insulators data from each other, made of tinted material that conducts infrared radiation, and has a high coefficient of thermal expansion.