User talk:Chris Howard

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Please feel free to leave me a message. (I don´t look in regularly, but will look at this page whenever I visit wikipedia) --Chris Howard 15:40, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

Contents

[edit] light tube/pipe disambig

After looking at the two articles that you linked, I think a disambig page would be advisable. They seem to be similar technologies that often use overlapping names, but they are still different. I would use light pipe as the disambig page and list Sulfur_lamp#Light_pipes as the first possibility and then light tube as the second possibility. Also, don't forget to add {{disambig}} to the botton of the light pipe page. =) I hope that helps. Have a great day and happy editing! ~ Amalas rawr =^_^= 16:14, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for your answer to my question. I´ve set up Light pipe as suggested, it looks OK to me. I´ll discuss improvements or a possible redesign below in the next section. Thanks for your quick reaction, and I wish you a great day, too! --Chris Howard 01:34, 2 August 2006 (UTC)
After further heavy work on light tube so it now includes not only light transport but also light distribution, the redirect is no longer needed (especially, as the "3M light pipe" is a product name for a light pipe as discussed in the light pipe redirect). It looks much better and coherent to me now, given that in most cases the same type of object (an optical fiber, and also a prism light guide) can be used for both aims. Thanks for your help and encouragement :-) --Chris Howard 11:33, 4 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Light pipes

Good work on heliostats and light tubes. I wanted to check in with you about creating an article for light pipes (the 3M kind). While 3M developed it for the sulfur lamp, they are still marketing the technology for use with other kinds of lamps, so I don't want to tie light pipes to sulfur lamps only. I can create an article for it by copying the basic description from the sulfur lamp article, but I'm not sure what to name it. Any suggestions? Also, there are solid-core light pipes as well--I guess it's something like thick optical fibre. Are the names for these things standardized? SDC 18:06, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

When considering what to name it, three characteristics of the 3M kind of pipe come to my mind:
At this point, I have now slightly generalized the Light tube page (synonymously Light pipe) to light transport and also to distribution, and maybe Prism light guide could become the title of an article on the 3M technology and related issues (for "prism light guide", see also search results http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=%22prism+light+guide%22&btnG=Google+Search ), with a redirect from "Prismatic light guide" (the search http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&q=%22prismatic+light+guide%22&btnG=Search gives some but fewer results). As prism light guides are more general than the 3M technology, a mere "copy and paste" from the sulfur lamp article wouldn´t be quite enough. Also, I´ve briefly mentioned prism light guides on the light pipe page, see Light_tube#Prism light guide.
Fiber optic light pipes (see Light_tube#Optical fiber) are mentioned on the light tube page; I´not sure about solid-core light pipes being thick optical fibers.
Looking forward to your input on sulfur lamps, prism light guides or elsewhere... --Chris Howard 19:34, 2 August 2006 (UTC)
In it simplest form a light tube is simply a rod made of high quality glass, with polished ends. I was a bit surprised to see that no link was made to the fiberscope or optical fiber; it are variations of the same theme. JdH 15:43, 3 August 2006 (UTC)
That would indeed be surprising. The light tube article does have a link to optical fiber as it is indeed one of the types of light tubes (see Light_tube#Optical fiber). Sulfur lamp also has a link to optical fiber as a separate section, see Sulfur_lamp#Optical_fibers. Its "Light pipes" section actually discusses not light pipes in general, but more specifically prism light guides such as the 3M light pipe (product name), so it could benefit from a renaming and reworking.
After further thought, I agree that a link to fiberscope, although is meant for imaging purposes (industrial endoscopy, see Optical_fiber#Other_uses_of_optical_fibers), is useful; I´m adding it to the light tube article. Thanks for pointing it out. --Chris Howard 07:15, 4 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Categories´syntax

Hi, I noticed (and agree) you added "Solar design" to Solar chimney (perhaps after noticing the category on the Light tube page?). I don´t know the Wiki-synax of two parameters in the category-specification, which you used in your last edit: could you tell me what the addition of "|Solar chimney" has? I´d appreciate to learn, --Chris Howard 12:59, 3 August 2006 (UTC)

The field after the vertical bar (known as a pipe) is used as a sort key. In this case I included it out of habit :-), but you could use it to organize the list; e.g. you could type [[Category:Solar design|ventilation]] to make it show up under "ventilation" instead. JdH 13:46, 3 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] L-P SPAMs

It wasn't SPAM so much as the oft-cited "WWIN", specifically "not a catalog of external links" (Or whatever it's called), as well as the noxious tendency of a random list of companies to attract more of them, eventually leading to a section that has to be severely hacked down. If there's a definate reason for keeping them (Such as the comment I notice for the 1st one (The original mfgr.)) then I wont mind. In all honesty, that's far form the worst I've seen, but I hit up on that articel after dealing with some much worse SPAMs, so I was probably in a less lenient feel and so took them all out. 68.39.174.238 00:31, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] BTW...

This it's possible to cut down on the italicized text block? Maybe create a disambiguation page somewhere? 68.39.174.238 00:32, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

I´ve made light tube (disambiguation), thanks for the hint. --Chris Howard 10:57, 4 November 2006 (UTC)
Still thinking about how/whether to shorten/comment/explain the manufacturors (not: vendors, that would indeed be far too long). --Chris Howard 10:57, 4 November 2006 (UTC)
Nice work with the new page. I've tried to make the text block at the top smaller slightly. Anyway, was there a specific standard you used when you added various mfgrs. to the list? If it was something that could be codified, then you could explain the list that way and I think that would solve any complaints that could be brought against it (EG. "Manufacturers with over X amount of sales in the last year" where "X" was high enough to include only the most notable in the industry). A suggestion. 68.39.174.238 17:27, 4 November 2006 (UTC)
Thanks for the compliment and for your making it smaller yet. About the manufacturors: I really listed all I could find (the biggest difficulty was to distinguish manufacturors from mere vendors). I looked in English, German, French, and Dutch language sites, and these U.S. and German manufacturors seem to be the only ones. I may have overlooked some, of course. (I'm not sure I would go as far as to say: "The following manufacturors are the only manufacturors so far", because there's no point in running the risk of a factual error.)--Chris Howard 22:51, 4 November 2006 (UTC)
If they are manufacturers and there genuinely are that few then I have no problem with that. I was afraid it was a truly indiscriminate list (The way a list of vendors would be). I'd just note made a HTML comment along the lines of "Only well established and in-buissiness manufacturers should be included here" and maybe check every now and then to ensure some SPAMmer hasn't invaded the list. Thanx. 68.39.174.238 02:00, 5 November 2006 (UTC)
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