If you are thinking about installing a fiber optic sky ceiling you really need to plan for it, otherwise, you will have a difficult time making it look good.
Over 11,000 feet of fiber optics will have been used
There are over 350 constellation stars using .75mm fiber
There are over 600 milky way stars using .50mm fiber
The virtual sky is 10’x12’
36 .75mm fibers make up one shooting star and travels over 12’
It took over 40 hours to pull & thread all the stars (to the 1/4” MDF panel and to the light unit matrix)Because I don’t have access above the ceiling I decided to use three 4’x10’ 1/4” MDF panels (special order). We first fitted the panels and then I painted them using BEHR Midnight Sky (available from Home Depot). Two coats, with the final after the ceiling was installed. With the two coats applied and dried, I then laid out the panels on the floor, as they would be mounted to the ceiling and rolled out the September sky template that was provided as part of the kit from FOSI. I first drilled the milky way stars using the drill bit FOSI provided. I drilled on the finish side so I wouldn’t have any bumps or chads… I wanted a clean hole. After I drilled the milky way I lifted the panels and on the back side, using my finger tips (as one would to read braille) I found the holes and marked them with a blue sharpie pen. I repeated the process for the constellations, but this time with red ink, and the shooting stars in black. This step allows you know which hole is which when threading from the back side (non-painted). The whole process took about 3 days.
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Installation After all the hole are drilled and marked, I then began pulling the fibers from the illuminator to the holes on the panel. I counted how many constellations in a 4’x4’ square and bundled that much of the .75mm together. Since the .75mm fiber is single stands I had to make my own bundle. The .50mm fiber is in a PVC jacket bundle containing 32 fibers. I prefer single strands because you can control the waste better. I had a friend come by a couple days and help thread the holes. I miss calculated how much fiber I needed so while I waited for more fiber to arrive, I would make up for lost time threading the fibers to the illuminator matrix panel.
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