Sunday, April 13, 2008

Hitting the Fiber Jackpot



Best weekend ever (for light pipe building): I went to the ACCRC where James, the guy who runs the place, had 250 feet of fiber, dumped at his warehouse from a trade show. It was previously used to transmit optical light, not infrared telecom light, which makes it ideal for a fiber light pipe. He gave it to me. Amazing. The thing is, in order to get enough fiber, I was looking at spending more than $250 at vendors I found online. This dramatically reduces the project cost and puts discarded fiber to good use.

The other amazing thing that made this weekend great was that I got together with my friend Dan, who will be joining me at the fair. He had drawn up some sketches of a stand for the dish. This was going to be my biggest challenge because I'm not too experienced with bandsaws, routers, bearings and motors. Lucky for me, Dan loves this stuff. His design gives the dish motion in two axes. Also, he has a plan to use a motor and some disembodied wheels from a remote control car so that we can move the dish remotely. This'll be awesome for the display at the fair.

1 comment:

greenejeans said...

This is the coolest idea since the wheel. I can envision a day when all our electrical power will enter our homes through fiber-optic tubes, powered by the sun. Good-bye Grid!