There’s nothing quite like waking up on a warm and sunny morning, with the sun filtering in through the windows over a magnificent beach view. Of course, in real life, not every bedroom has access to beautiful natural vistas and abundant natural light. [Rue Mohr] decided to try and solve this issue with technology.
The initial write-up may be brief, but the pictures of the resulting project show a proper hacker’s build. A stand for an old office chair appears to serve as the base, and the mirror is mounted on a frame that allows for both pan and tilt to be adjusted. There’s a large gear to enable pan rotation, which meshes with a nifty old-school cage gear built out of what we suspect is plastic and welding rod. An AVR microcontroller is charged with running the show, with it interpolating a series of waypoints to set the mirror’s position throughout the day.
[Rue] reports that the project is nearing completion, and is soon to be fully automated. With the dark bedroom that spawned the project no longer a concern, the mirror will instead be pressed into service to provide sun to a row of bean plants.
If you’re looking for a pan-tilt mechanism, but something a little smaller, this 3D-printed mechanism might be just what you’re after.
Reminds me of this (idea from 1913, execution/build starting later) https://www.visitnorway.com/listings/the-giant-sun-mirrors-in-rjukan/3632/
I have this idea for a heliostat that doubles as a death ray: a whole bunch of mirrors that focus the sun and then scan slowly across an area that has particularly persistent weeds. This implementation is way more durable than my 3d printed attempts. Man, aligning these things is a drag.
I’ve been thinking of something similar but for our driveway, which is on a slope facing north. A couple of heliostats sweeping reflected sunlight across and down the driveway to melt ice and snow left by the plow.
The death ray thing is real. It’s called a Solar Energy Farm.
Here it is happening by accident. https://i.redd.it/ve0h71j1voj11.jpg
Holy Crap, ruemohr! I remember that dude from IRC like 20 years ago. Good times!
Aziz, light!
+1 for obscure comment..