Light up dark areas in your home during daytime using this green and sustainable concept. Recycle used clear plastic soda bottles, add water+bleach, then install. After installation this solar light bulb can provide approximately 55 watts of light from the sun!
The comments below have noted that this is like a solar tube or deck prism.
The communities who benefit from this idea live in areas where the houses hardly have windows and live in darkness even during daytime. Their solution up until this innovation was to turn on the light bulb and use electricity.
Source: www.isanglitrongliwanag.org
The comments below have noted that this is like a solar tube or deck prism.
The communities who benefit from this idea live in areas where the houses hardly have windows and live in darkness even during daytime. Their solution up until this innovation was to turn on the light bulb and use electricity.
Source: www.isanglitrongliwanag.org
Materials:
*PET soda bottle
*Galvanized Iron (GI) sheet
*Rubber sealant
*Bleach
*Filtered Water
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Signing UpStep 1: Cut approximately 9 x 10 inches of GI sheet (corrugated or flat)
(Filipino: Gumupit ng yero na may sukat na 9 x 10 inches.)
*Here is a how-to video
*Here is a how-to video
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Thank you so much :) You made my day !!
thanks
Thank you so much :) You made my day !!
Adding fluorescent components wiil make it glow a little, not enough to see what you would be doing but maybe nice as an orientation light.
These kind of bottle lights can also be placed in a wall, I saw it in one of the Transformer movies near the Pyramids where megan and shia hide and are found by a bug-transformer, these look more like glass wine bottles glued in a cement wall, looks pretty cool too!
Any thoughts?
Any thoughts?
But i want to clarify somethings.... One.. what if i at some part of the day I dont want the light to be there in the room... How can the light be removed temporarily...
While the top and bottom of the bottle sticking out it collects and puts out light at a greater angle than just a hole it does not increase the power of the light. So in normally lighted situations it is just that, a soda bottle with water in it.
Since it is the only source of light for the videos it looks really bright (and the cheating i mention was added exposure and contrast on the video)
that being said, you arent doing anything wrong.
As with most of these feel good initiatives and whatnot, they make them look really grand, but they are often less than grand, or at least rather simple.
Not saying it is a bad idea, it is good, but it is being rather over-marketed.
Why the hell can't they use full (unopened) bottle of sparkling mineral water?
This would have the following advantages:
- sparkling mineral water coming from beverage manufacturer is aseptic. High CO2 content kills any algae or bacteria.
- internal pressure of CO2 in the bottle prevents shrinking/swelling form changing atmospheric pressure allowing for good roof seal.
- though actually CO2 can migrate through the wall of plastic bottle, the diffusion factor is pretty low, so it will keep internal pressure for at least two years. Original closure by the manufacturer is also pretty tight and leak-proof.
- no need of bleach or other additives - the price of sparkling water PET bottle at the shop is also very low.
LIWANAG...you sir have inspired me to instead of using electricity to power lights in a treehouse that i am going to build for my children in the near future, i am going to use your idea of the "Soda Bulb" to provide light for them. thank you so much for this valuable method of not only recycling, but also providing light in a way that halps the environment.
I agree that using the original would be more stable, but if it was punctured, then you'd have the potentially sticky residue of the drink to deal with too, versus plain water.
Besides, there's no sparkling water here.
I'm assuming rubber sealant is affordable and avalible in poor communities?
It's a good idea for lighting, but I'm not so sure about the green/recycled side of things...
it would for shure increase the luminescence of the bottle...
More likely it would split and burst if the temperature drops to below 0 degrees C.
Personally I think one piece of "laserlight" plastic corrugated instead of a sheet of iron, works much better.
big mess
However, I don't see water and chlorine doing the same even with the heat.
Very good idea BTW.
I also forgot them in the car at -15 C and they froze and there was no damage.
I use a frozen soda bottle of water as a icepack and drink every day for my lunch-box without any problems.
Just my 2 cents and what I think is a better way to go GREEN.
Downside of this is you lose the lens effect of the bottle.
Good Ible !
I use the same amount of one as the other and find no difference between them for getting a job done.
Sorry but the HP is cheaper for Me.
I'm not an engineer, just speaking from experience.
Best of Luck!
firstly, I believe that adding bleach produces lots of nascent [O]. Now since there's nothing to react with, nascent [O] reacts with nascent [O] to produces O2. Excess production of O2 leads to O2 gas bubbles in the solution, leading to lots of Total Internal Reflection. Saying Refraction without providing explanation is not really good, in this case.
Adding Ethanol as an anti-coolant or something wouldn't be good since excess of nascent oxygen would oxidise it to carboxylic acid. Which might erode the bottle if concentration is too large.
1)Just TIR at the border of water and plastic or plastic and air will not be enough for such amount of light.
2)Salt also makes it a little translucent.
Now, you have two ways to avoid freezing: adding a modifier or replacing the liquid entirely. As we said, it would make it more expensive to use anything different than water, so an additive would be better. Salt is a good idea, but unpractical, because you need a lot of salt to achieve a useful result. For example, to lower the freezing point to -5ºC you need 2% of salt. Also, the more salt you add, the more turbid the solution gets, so it will lower the effectiveness of the device.
I guess the more convenient way to approach the problem would be a mixture of an anti-coolant and water. The best choices, economically speaking, would be ethylene glycol (the common anti-coolant) and ethanol. You would get almost the same amount of anti-cooling effect with mixtures of these substances and water (in a 50:50 mixture, you would get a freezing point of -37ºC with ethylene glycol and -32ºC with ethanol). The more important thing here is that ethylene glycol is more expensive and is poisonous. Ethanol, on the other hand, is cheaper, but flammable (although, the more water in the mixture, the lower the risk).
If you want, you can take a look at this page:
http://www.engineeringtoolbox.com/ethanol-water-d_989.html
There you'll be able to find the tables with the proportions and the freezing points of ethanol:water mixtures.
One important note: both ethylene glycol and ethanol have preservative properties, so if you use them, there's no need to add bleach or chlorine, specially in the case of ethylene glycol, because the bleach will attack and decompose it.
Hope it helps, see you.
It is amazing to me that this has been around and it is the first hearing of it.
I am wondering, is it the sunlight that causes the illlumination?
Would love to see designers get a hold of the basic idea and develop products for home owners.
liwanag for sure didn't mean to enforce anybody to use a Bosch brand drill it happens that it was the one he used with this project.
Unfortunately it is difficult to convey mood in a reply in instructables. I cannot speak for Bob, but it was in no way my intention to be sarcastic, just to crack a bit of a joke. I try to make that clear by adding the smiley but obviously that did not have the desired effect.
I surely admire this instructable, just as I admire the initiative and in no way did I want to be sarcastic. It was just an open door that I could not resist kicking in.
Thanks for your explanation bro. I'm also sorry if I reacted differently with the joke you intended to crack. liwanag project was able to help his fellow kababayan in his area who cannot afford to pay/shoulder the high electricity bill in the Philippines. With his iniative they were able to save a lot.
As someone pointed out, this is just a modern, very green and inexpensive version of a deck prism.
The bottle will degrade, but five years is not bad.
Forget bleach, salt is a better solution (no pun intended) because of less damage if the bottle develops a leak. Besides, salt will improve the index of refraction, giving a slightly better light piping effect.
Finally, a kit of parts that would include a rubber gasket (instead of the sealant, a gasket would make it easy to replace the bottle), rubber protective cap, bag of salt and a template with instructions. Could be distributed by UNESCO or some other organization.
Which means it will still outlast any bulb you could buy at the store, including those florescent bulbs that cost an arm and a leg! ;-)
And I seriously doubt Pepsi and Coke are convinced of veggie-plastics yet.
el cloro comercial de uso domestico es apropiado para implementarlo en este método???
a pesar de lo obvio tengo la inquietud de saber si la lampara ecológica funciona por las noches???
de que manera podemos replicar este modelo acá entre la población indígena que carece de energía eléctrica y luz???
saudos a todos,
Camilo Jose Herrera Díaz
Executive Director / Founder
Fundación Un Litro De Luz Colombia
314 430 79 82
Duitama - Boyacá
en un video vi que usaban pastillas de cloro (que venden en droguerías a bajo costo) usaban 2 pastillas por cada litro de agua, es decir, 2 por cada "bombillo".
las bombillas dejan de emitir luz cerca de las 6 de la tarde (o la hora a la que baje el sol)
yo creo que lo más "difícil" de conseguir es la lámina de acero galvanizado, pero seguro en lugares de reciclaje se encuentran làminas baratas, las botellas se consiguen fàcil, lo que sì he visto es que utilizan bastante las de 1 litro, no menos que eso, y que la botella es funcional durante 5 años aproximadamente, lo que hace que no tengas que estar cambiando el agua con frecuencia.
Que estès bien.
Un Litro De Luz
recuerda que nos puedes contactar para la instalación en la comunidad wayúu,
Saludos,
Camilo j Herrera
Fundación Un Litro De Luz Colombia
314 430 79-82
Good is on this network... Maybe we will manage to convince more people to take it on and disseminate the concept further in the field...!!!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deck_prism
Nice job. I may put one in my shed that has no electricity.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Light_tube
Which are obviously just a new twist on the old deck prisms. :)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8SsGjjMEEDw&feature=player_embedded
There's another brazilian inventor who used PET bottles with milk package aluminium card to create solar panels to warm water, look at out: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jKnSxJ_TnO8&NR=1
I don't want to get into a pissing contest but here goes.
I did watch the video, and the end was particularly interesting. They ask for DONATIONS, I hope you were quick to donate. My motto is Charity begins at Home.
Comme disait Einstein, l'intelligence n'est rien, seule l'imagination compte...
Bravo, superbe idée.
Eric
Really? You actually think that looking after the environment is a bad thing?
In any case, since this is a young project, they can just re-install a new bottle for just under $1 as the cost of the raw materials.
The thin plastic will offer little to no insulation value and water is a good conductor of heat. So yes this will act as a heat sink if used in a heated area.
in a more useful application, another researcher found pigments and electrolytes together can create a photovoltaic cell from discarded bottles...
After which they can either change the water or just re-install a new bottle for just under $1 (bottle + water + bleach + sealant).
Have you though of cutting aluminum cans apart (for the shinny inside) to make reflectors out of? This would direct light down away from the roof and rafters, which can absorb much of the light that hits them.
When I was a Peace Corps volunteer there, I thought this would be a great project after I saw the Brazilian news piece on the Brazilian guy who "invented" this in 2002. Glad to see someone finally decided to make it happen!
One question, does the bleach have any optical properties or is it just to stop algae from growing? I know some washing powders have fluorescent chemicals which glow in UV light to make your whites shine brighter and I was wondering if this made any difference.
Thanks
Your idea of using additive that collects UV and emits in the visible spectrum is very good. You get added useful light and less UV.
FYI the reason why it is in Filipino is because it's a project in the Philippines
Espero que en mi pais surjan proyectos asi.
Congratulations, an excellent idea, very simple and effective. A great invention.
I hope that in my country so projects arise.
saudos a todos,
Camilo Jose Herrera Díaz
Executive Director / Founder
Fundación Un Litro De Luz Colombia
314 430 79 82
Duitama - Boyacá