stars inside your trailer

[Duane King]

Has anyone thought to make a fiber optic star field on the ceiling inside their trailer? I don't know how expensive a bundle of fiber optic cable is, but the installation would be easy. The big draw back (besides price) would be the difficulty in insulating the roor with the fiber optic strands protruding into the roof cavity where the insulation needs to go. I don't know if you can use LED's as a light source for fiber optics or if you would need a regular incandescent bulb. I figure about 200 individual strands of fiber optic each carefully drilled and glued into the ceiling and you would have quite a star show.

You could lay in bed and look at the stars even if you don't have a moonroof.



Okay, if you don't like that idea, how about a mirrorball? Come on people. We've got to think outside the box. . .

[rbeemer]

How about a Crystal Chandelier

[halfdome, Danny]

I think a little Disco ball with images of John Ravolta rotating around the tear from a strobe light and Donna Summers singing on the radio would be neato
We have a candle bubble light in our tear, Jane loves it. Danny

[angib]

I figure about 200 individual strands of fiber optic each carefully drilled and glued into the ceiling and you would have quite a star show.

Spooky!

The only trailers I build are fundraising models of a 40ft trailer that's a mobile classroom for a drug awareness charity in Britain. The real trailers have exactly this sort of ceiling and here's a video clip about the classrooms:
Life Education mobile classroom

You can see how you would "grab a star, bring it back down and pop it under your pillow", but sadly you only get to see a reflection of the star ceiling in TV. So that's not much use to you, I guess. But it does look nice and gets 'oohs' and 'aahs'.

Andrew

[Mary K]

Get rid of the vent fan and put in a sun/moon roof and don't park under a tree....

You could use those glow in the dark stickers on the headliner

You could mount a fluorescent fixture inside the ceiling and put pin holes for the light to shine though.


...
Thanks all I can think of....

Mk

[Miriam C.]

Fiber optics should not present a problem for the insulation. Just run you cable before you put in the insulation. They are not very big and you don't necessarily have to run them in bundles. You can scatter them.

You can also cut out paths for them if you do bundles and put a strip over.

Might be cool.

[Mary K]

Fiber optics should not present a problem for the insulation. Just run you cable before you put in the insulation. They are not very big and you don't necessarily have to run them in bundles. You can scatter them.

You can also cut out paths for them if you do bundles and put a strip over.

Might be cool.

I don know...You can not bend fiber at sharp angles, and I would think you would have to with the clearance between headliner and top...



Mk

[mikeschn]

Don't make it so hard on yourself. Just get a star ball...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planetarium



Mike...

[doug hodder]

Duane...I did a similar system in a bar in Denver years ago...the big killer was the illumination system to drive the optics, but I had long distances to go...They didn't have a small system available at the time...That technology has come a long way since then and I know that side lighting optics are available also...an idea might be to go with 12 volt led's and a dimmer or recess the led's behind something to cut down on the size of the visible illumination...a hard bend in the optics will drive the illumination through the side and make the spot dimmer...Cool idea however!!...you could do the Northern Hemisphere etc...with all the constellations. Doug

[Podunkfla]

Duane... I did fiber optics like that years ago for a kids bunk-bed. The fibers were hid in the ceiling above the lower bunk. Back then all I used for the fibers was monofilament fishing line... cheap! I melted a little ball on the end of each strand with a soldering iron so the wouldn't pull out of the holes and kinda lit up better. The main light bulb was a 12v auto bulb running off a little transformer I canabalized from a little desk lamp. It worked fine and the kids loved their built in night-light.

That was way before leds though... Now I would prolly use a bunch of 3 mm little LEDS. They are easy to wire for 12 volts usually wired series in groups of 3 or 4, depending on the requirement of the particular led (different ones need different voltages, sometimes you need a resistor). They don't work well with a reostat though... Ya kinda have to stay within their rated range of voltage.

Anyhoo, they are dirt cheap in quantity. Here's some sources:
http://ledmuseum.home.att.net/buy.htm

And here's a good LED calculator:
http://led.linear1.org/1led.wiz

Oops, this one is for multiple arrays of LEDs:
http://led.linear1.org/led.wiz

[Mary K]

Anyhoo, they are dirt cheap in quantity. Here's some sources: http://ledmuseum.home.att.net/buy.htm

I like this link.... http://www.kiss-textil.de/galactikaen.htm

Should I get one for the side tent???

Mk

[Podunkfla]

Anyhoo, they are dirt cheap in quantity. Here's some sources: http://ledmuseum.home.att.net/buy.htm

I like this link.... http://www.kiss-textil.de/galactikaen.htm

Should I get one for the side tent???

Mk

I've seen those before... Eeeek! Not at 249 Euro though?
Dang... maybe I oughta go in the "Glowing Turlet Seat Business!"

[doug hodder]

Brick...thanks for the info on that...didn't realize how you needed to stay within the voltage on the LED's....I'm an electrical idiot!!! I didn't install the systems...I just sold the packages...Doug

[Podunkfla]

Brick...thanks for the info on that...didn't realize how you needed to stay within the voltage on the LED's....I'm an electrical idiot!!! I didn't install the systems...I just sold the packages...Doug

Yep... they are voltage sensative. They also won't light and often go "fizzt" if you hook them up wrong polarity. (Hint: the longer wire is positive on a bare LED).

[Duane King]

Okay, I've got stars. I haven't tried to take a picture at night of the overall effect. I don't know how to get my camera to take a picture in the dark. But trust me on this: FIBER OPTIC STARS ARE REALLY COOL!

I've got 144 stars in my roof and it really does look like you are looking up at a bright night sky. I like it very much. The entire system just draws a few milliamps, so I expect to always be able to sleep under the stars without draining my battery. All of the stars get their power from just ONE LED bulb. Pretty cool, huh? This is actually the worlds most expensive nightlight.

The manufacturer modified their 9 volt kit to run on my 12 volt rv battery. I had to pay for this additional engineering on their part. The whole thing cost my $275.00. I know that is a bunch, but after seeing the finished effect, I don't think I will build any other trailers unless they also have stars in the roof. I like it that much.