Prototype Touring lighting Picture · Machines

Kinetic fiber

A high-speed lighting prototype built around the idea of bending a laser: side-emitting fiber moved by two motorized gantries.

Side-emitting fiber optic cable glowing blue on a table

Overview

The brief was a kinetic lighting piece for a touring musician. Take a side-emitting fiber and move it fast enough to draw volume in air — ideation through to the first hardware and software prototype.

The fiber had to spool without killing the core. The gantry had to stay light enough to accelerate. Power, control, and the optical path all had to travel with the carriage.

Gantry carriage with belt drive and fiber coupling — Gantry prototype

Roller and coupling parts on the bench with CAD on screen — Rollers and coupling, in progress

Approach

Roller and routing geometries were iterated to hold a safe bend radius. Fiber length was modeled as a catenary, with sag and offsets in the math. Lasers stay on the floor — the moving assembly only carries fiber, through a rotary coupling and a drag chain.

Lighting and motion are separate on purpose: DMX for light, steppers plus OSC for motion. Software limits stop a bad command from overrunning the cable. Hard limit switches sit underneath that.

Core mechanics are validated. Control and spooling are still being traded against each other.

Laser driver board mounted to a labeled RGB fiber coupler — Laser coupling, off the gantry