new way of doing lighting? fiber optics?

so i was out at my mother in laws house trying to figure out what was wrong with the pool lights, i made a shoking discovery that it was a fibre optic system, with one central lamp or light source (actually a halogen bulb like you find in fog lights) and several leads for fiber optic inputs. it turned out what i thought were little jets in the pool were actually little fiberoptic bulbs. the damn thing lit up the pool like the light was coming from the water.

then it hit me! what about a fiber optic grow system???? like a 1KW lamp and use a bunch of fiberoptic leads to light the plants exactly where you want it and for more plants then traditional lighting could produce because all the light would be absorbed into the optic system.

now theres a few parts that maybe someone with experiance in the field to fill me in on.

1) what kind of optic can put out the type of light the plant uses

2)how many lumens would you lose using this type of system?

3)would this be efficient enough to use in a high yield op?

I dont know, anyone with any knowledge would be helpful. To my knowledge no one has tried this before i dunno. any input would be helpful.

I think when i have the time and money ill get some things together and try it out. who knows this could be next big breakthrough since hydrophonics!

what about putting something on the roof that tracks the sun, and points one end of the fiber optic towards the sun? the other end in the grow room. then its free lighting =]

although that much fiber optic might be expensive

im also interested in the math of this. whats the number of lumens lost per foot of fiber?

what if u group a lot in a big circle? would the lost light from the fibers in the middle be "grabbed" by the outer fibers, and carried to the end?
if yes, maybe one big group on the growroom end would be better.
if not, and not many lumens r lost, maybe it would be better to have 5 or 6 smaller bundles around the growroom, to provide more coverage. all of the smaller bundles would then come together, and the other end of them would be in one big bundle in front of your light source.

i was thinking one big bundle that splits into tiny strands about 3x the diameter of human hair, but like hundreds per plant, and you could put the light EXACTLY where the plant needs it. the best part is there is no heat because the main light source wouldnt even be in the same room. but i thought of the sun tracking idea, but it may just end up being an arrow that points to your house saying that your growing pot and that would attract the wrong attention.


Ok so ive looked into it and it is totally possible to do this. In fact some scientists have developed a fiber optic grow system for growing veggies on the moon. its powered by 12 hps bulbs. Why wouldnt they just use leds and bottleneck the nodes together into one useable light source? or just use the sun? i dunno, but theyre hydro/fiberoptic hybrid system puts out full yields in just 30 days. If you could replicate that type of system for bud.... could you imagine having full yields in 30 days???? is that even possible???? is there a strain on earth that could possibly do that????

What i do know is that the type of fiber optics needed are about $2 a foot so i think i will pursue it in the future.....