Water bottle Light Bulb??

Originally posted by n0b0DY
It had me going for a sec. Ha!
But is it possible to really make something like this? Like when a cuddle fish illuminates itself? Could we make something the is self illuminating using the same chemical reaction as the cuddle fish? hmm..

yeah dummy, they are called chemlights

reply to post by blimpseeker


Yeah but one you can make yourself. DUMMY!

reply to post by Blitzkreigen


uhh are you retarded? it said clorox... not CHLORINE you dumb#

Saw it demonstrated at a camping store. Was not impressed. A candle is much better and last longer. Sometimes hi-tech isn't as good as low tech.

Why is everyone sitting here, yelling about how it isn't creating it's own light.

Of course it isn't. It is, however, a nice way to light a small room which has no windows. Installing a skylight is expensive (the work and the materials runs high in price).

The video was showing that he was using the bottles of water to scatter light into a room; and fill it with light, from a small, and most importantly, dirt cheap piece of home-made equipment.

In terms of survival use: Say SitX happens and you have yourself a shelter. No electricity, but it is clean, warm and keeps you hidden. If you want to let some light into your area, without windows which both make your hideout easier to spot and make parts of your interior unsafe from outside intervention, then you could install two of these bottles from very small holes in the ceiling (or wall).

Instant, and free, interior lighting, without the use of electricity or windows. Seems like a pretty nifty bit of information to store away for future use.

edit to add: And yes, I realize this doesn't work at night, that's not it's intended purpose. The poor woman interviewed demonstrated it's positive use, and in SitX, interior light for a portion of the day is better than nothing.

[edit on 6/18/0808 by spines]

Pretty much worthless as demonstrated. Might even be bordering on a hoax. Sure it'll work as a skylight, but with just those tiny holes, it only lets in as much light as you'll get with such a tiny hole. The bottle serves to diffuse it around the room, but you're not going to match the brightness of a 60w bulb (like in the video) with a 2cm across hole in your wall, even at noon. Sunlight is about 600W per square meter at noon at the equator, so you can expect to get about the equivalent brightness of a 1.63×10^-10 watt bulb. that's many orders of magnitude less than a 60 watt bulb, as demonstrated in the video. Sure, something like 95% of the light from an incandescent bulb is in invisible infrared, but that 5% is still orders of magnitude stronger than the incident radiation from the sun on a patch the size of a bottle cap. Wholly discounting the fact that sunlight is has only about four times greater lumens per watt than an incandescent bulb; so most of it is also infrared, and a bit of UV.

There's a reason skylights are generally much larger than a tiny hole in your roof. My evaluation is that it would be better than having a plain hole in your wall, but would still be a waste of effort. If you want an expedient skylight, make a big hole and cover it with waxed paper or something. Frosted glass or translucent white plastic would be ideal, corrugated plastic tends to be thin enough to let light in, but sturdy enough to make a good roofing material.


And if it's proposed that it's actually making light, instead of acting as a skylight, then that's ridiculous. Bleach and water do not, a glow-in-the-dark material, make.

reply to post by Anonymous ATS


I would say that it isn't worthless for those who can not find all of these alternatives to glass. Not having money is not the only problem in a poor or rural area.

It obviously lights up an otherwise dark room, and uses no electricity to do so. It doesn't create it's own light, yet helps to diffuse what would otherwise be a small band of light, into a workable lightsource.

Tell me how this is worthless for either a person of poverty (like the woman in the film) or the intentionally hidden, SitX, survival shelter?

Most everyone states that to remain unseen is best during a SitX experience. A window is not the answer in that situation, and depending on the situation, a small hole the size of a water bottle opening seems to be much better than a window; of any material.

[edit on 6/18/0808 by spines]

reply to post by spines


Because The video is very likely fake. It's certainly overoptimistic. Try it yourself. It's NOT bright enough to see anything by. Not enough light falls on a patch that big to do anything.

And if they can't find any of those alternatives to glass; THEY CAN CUT UP THE BOTTLE AND USE THAT. Easier to assume they can get nails or tacks or tape than to assume they can get a drill and the equipment to thread a hole made in wood to accept a water bottle.

reply to post by Anonymous ATS


The next sunny day, I will give it a shot and see how it turns out. I will report back here when I do.

Originally posted by Anonymous ATS

Because The video is very likely fake. It's certainly overoptimistic. Try it yourself. It's NOT bright enough to see anything by. Not enough light falls on a patch that big to do anything.

The average 100 watt light bulb emits 1500-1700 lumens. Sunlight on an average day produces 100000 lux (which is about 1 lumen per square meter).

So yes, enough sunlight can fall on a 3" diameter circle to illuminate an entire room.

en.wikipedia.org...
en.wikipedia.org...(unit)
en.wikipedia.org...

reply to post by Rasobasi420


First off, you might be using the units incorrectly here. a 3 inch circle is, in addition to being COMPLETELY NOTHING TO DO WITH WHAT WE'RE TALKING ABOUT, about .0045 square meters. At wikipedia's maximum value for sunlight of 100000 lux, we're talking about 456 lumens. That's more or less in the range of a 60 watt bulb, but remember, that's at noon, at the equator, on the brightest of sunny days. Could be useful, probably wouldn't be worth the effort in real life.

But if you watched the video, you'd see that it isn't like that at all. They've got the tops of the bottles screwed into holes in the ceiling, just like they're light bulbs. The neck of a bottle is only about 2 cm wide. That's a surface area of just 0.000314 square meters, less than a tenth of your "3 inch hole", for a luminous flux of just 31 lumens, over an order of magnitude dimmer than a 60w bulb. This is, of course also on the sunniest day at noon at the equator. 31 lumens is the equivalent of a 1 watt bulb.

Either the people in the video are on the planet mercury when they say that the water filled bottle lights up the room brighter than a 60w bulb, or they're lying, and it's a kind of hoax of exaggeration.

(my previous calculation was inaccurate, because I screwed up the order of operations. My machine calculated .01m^(2pi), when it should have done .01m^2(pi)) whoops. it's brighter than I initially surmised, but still far to weak to be of any use whatsoever as shown in the video. If they were actually sticking the bottles halfway through the roof so that they had at least a 3 inch cross section like you must think, THEN it might make some sense (but probably be more conspicuous than a window, too). But as shown, it looks very much like a hoax.

The way it's done in the video, the bulbs probably wouldn't really light up at all significantly before or after noon, since they're screwed into beams of wood. the light coming in at an angle would just run into the wood.

i suspect that the vid is enhanced - by some one with a portable searchlight on the roof ` assisting ` that bottles by shinging the beam directly at them

Originally posted by ignorant_ape
i suspect that the vid is enhanced - by some one with a portable searchlight on the roof ` assisting ` that bottles by shinging the beam directly at them

Sunlight is brighter than portable searchlights......

Why do people underestimate the power of sunlight in a tropical location?

reply to post by Rasobasi420


I love this thread.

You all ROCK! Interesting points of view from everyone. Its making more sense to me, just got to try it.

www.solatube.com...

Before and after:
www.solatube.com...

Blitzkreigen

[edit on 21-6-2008 by Blitzkreigen]

I was just over at godlikeproductions and saw this. I was going to post about it, but I see there are already people talking about this. It is a very good idea. Can someone explain why you need the bleach? I think it is to keep algae or something from clouding the water. I don't think it would intensify the light. I think it would just keep the water clear. What do you think?

I just came back from Costa Rica visiting a friend we installed them all over his home and it works great. I am so glad to have seen this it made a huge difference.

This has been around for a while, seen it posted on here a few times also, it was designed for poor areas where buildings are all close together and no outside light could get in, the bleach keeps the water clean and clear, from memory it is as good if not better than a regular lightbulb in a house, been installing these a lot in the philippines lately in the shanty areas. Its actually a pretty good idea if you have a big shed with lots of sunlight outside throw a couple of these in there and it'll light it up like a christmas tree. pretty good way to save some dollars especially if you spend long hours working at home in your shed tinkering or w/e.

Now that is a really good find (if true)

where can you get that chemical from that you put into the water?