Fiber Optic Ceiling Pumps To The Beat

For years [Centas] dream was to take the stars to his home and build a fiber optic ceiling. Even though there are many fiber optic star ceiling kits commercially available, we are glad he decided to go full DIY on this project as the result is simply astonishing.

[Centas] chose to make a model of a section of the sky as it is visible from his home and generated a map of 1,200 stars with the planetarium software Celestia. The most time-consuming part of making a star ceiling is always poking lots of holes for the fibers. In [Cenas] case this turned out to be especially cumbersome as he decided to install the fibers after hanging the ceiling panel so he came up with a method to catch the fiber with a fishing pole after pushing it through from the bottom. The finished ceiling looks really great though with its rounded edges that contain RGB LED strips for side illumination. [Cenas] also painted the ceiling after installing the fibers so they are not visible when they are not lit but there is still enough light shining through the paint.

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Installing A Starscape Ceiling

fiber-optic-star-ceiling

[Mike Galloway] set out to install a lighted starscape in the ceiling of the baby room. We remember first coming across this type of thing at a Planet Hollywood restaurant at least 10 years ago. We’ve always wondered how difficult this type of thing is to install.

This setup involves an LED based illuminator and bundles of fiber optics. [Mike] first mounted the illuminator in the corner of the room at ceiling level and ran the bundles of fiber optics up into the attic. He then used a cordless dremel to drill 1/16″ holes, one for each fiber in the bundle. This translates to a lot of holes! Once everything was in place, he filled the holes with glue to hold the fibers in place, and snipped off the excess from the room-side using a fingernail clipper. We’ve embedded his video of the system in action after the break.

This may take some time, but it seems easy enough and now we know how these ceilings work.

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