LEDs Lighting Up the African Darkness 182
Peace Corps Online writes "In a non-electrified society, life is defined by the sun and little is accomplished once it sets around 6 pm. Only 19 percent of rural areas in Ghana have electricity. The rest use foul-smelling kerosene lamps to light their huts, which pollute, provide little light and are major fire hazards. But now Philips has partnered with KITE, a not-for-profit Ghanaian organization, to bring artificial light to villages that have no electricity. The new Philips products include a portable lantern which provides bright white light where it is needed, the Dynamo Multi LED self-powered (wind-up) flashlight that provides 17 minutes of light from two minutes hand winding, and the 'My Reading Light,' which is a solar-powered reading light with built-in rechargeable battery. 'People can now do things in the evening,' says Harriette Amissah-Arthur, KITE's director. 'If you could only see the joy these products bring the villagers. You look at their faces; you have to see it to believe it.'"
Gunfire (Score:1, Funny)
Re:Gunfire (Score:5, Funny)
A small price to pay for not being eaten by a Grue.
Camping memories (Score:3, Funny)
I am the only one who thinks kerosene lamps actually do smell quite nice.
Re:God bless (no text) (Score:4, Funny)
So Philips is the agent of the Devil?
think of this:
"In an electrified society, life is defined by the television and little is accomplished once it starts around 6 pm".
Philips makes lots of TVs too.... case proven :)
Product Naming (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Product Naming (Score:3, Funny)
The Gimped Feisty gLight? No thanks.
Oven use (Score:4, Funny)
Indeed! Neither CFLs nor LEDs give off enough heat to work in an oven [hasbro.com].
Quote the summary... (Score:2, Funny)
'If you could only see the joy these products bring the villagers. You look at their faces; you have to see it to believe it.'
I bet their eyes light up!
Re:Where can I get mine? (Score:3, Funny)
Also for developing countries it's a way to cook without using any natural resources.
Except...sunlight...and the materials consumed to make the stove in the first place...
I think you meant to say "non-renewable".
Whoops! Opened my mouth again...
sunlight is not yellow (Score:3, Funny)
You need to count the sunlight that gets spread out by the atmosphere, making that lovely blue sky. Add up the blue sky and the yellow-looking Sun, and you get a bluish-white light.
The result is that natural shadows have a bluish cast. People look more natural outdoors because the shadows of their face get this.
To reproduce, method 1:
Cover your ceiling with an array of colored LEDs that point down. Focus the red and green ones to a 1-degree angle. Spread out the blue ones. Of course, this requires about a million LEDs for a typical room.
To reproduce, method 2:
Get a very high ceiling with bluish-white lights way up high. (mercury, halogen, LED, etc.) Focus the lights into 1-degree downward beams. At a normal ceiling height, add a false ceiling made from aerogel. (possibly with glass to support it) The aerogel acts like atmosphere, spreading the blue more than the red and green.
To reproduce, method 3:
Split the light with a prism, then put it back together without the blue. A couple custom plastic parts over a white LED should do the job. The blue is allowed to leak out the side, unfocused.