Starscape
“A marriage made in heaven” is how fibre
optics specialist Starscape describes the
combination of modern LED lighting and
optical fibres. “LEDs offer economy and
long service life, while fibre optics allow
you to reduce the number of potential
failure points in an installation and to
distribute light from easily accessible
nodes around the site,” says Starscape's
sales director Peter Fagan.
“Traditionally, the great problem with
embedding lights of any kind in a
structure is what you do when they
fail,” explains Fagan. “Replacing a single
failed light fitting may be difficult from a
technical perspective and as the years go
by there's also the issue of being able to
actually find a matching replacement.”
However, since fibre optics allow you to
separate the light generation from the
light output you can bypass this potential
problem, he reasons. As long as the
LED-based light source is accessible,
maintenance is no challenge, and in the
worst case scenario a failed light source
can be replaced in a matter of seconds.
“One of the unique features of fibre optic
lighting is that you can promise your
client that by the time a light source is
54 Landscape & Urban Design
eventually needs replacing, the new unit
will almost certainly be more powerful,
more economical, more versatile and
probably cheaper than the original
model,”says Fagan. “So, instead of having
built-in obsolescence, you have an open-
ended upgrade path.”
Starscape's compact LED-based light
sources can illuminate up to around 450
x 0.75mm fibres (larger models have
capacities in excess of 1000 fibres), and
these can be used individually to create
hundreds of “star” points in paving,
decking or walls or they can be grouped
in bundles to form larger points of light
in formal steel paver/deck fittings. Or, use
the fibres to illuminate glass tiles set into
the ground or wall.
The electrical part of the project may be
as simple as plugging the light source into
the nearest socket, but Starscape expects
solar-powered light sources to become
more common in the near future.
The more sophisticated light sources
have DMX functionality allowing for
full integration with home automation
systems, and lighting effects range from
subtle to very dynamic.
“The premium quality fibre which we use
allows us to project light to 15 metres
quite comfortably, or as far as 20 metres
at a pinch,” explains Fagan. “Over longer
distances the issue is not – as you might
expect – light attenuation, but rather
colour shift, as white light starts to take
on greenish hues. This happens because
attenuation affects different frequencies
at different rates.”
Northumberland-based Starscape
has customers in around 30 countries
worldwide.
www.starscape.co.uk
[email protected]
tel 01289 332900.
Photo Credit: Simon Hayes