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Motorised sun shade for my skylights. How to make one?


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Calling the ingenious engineers on BuildHub!

 

I have a vision for a motorised sun shade for my skylights:

  • The skylights are completely flat, about 900mm x 2000mm, and will sit on a flat roof above my living room
  • The sun shade will be a sheet of thin metal (or other suitable substance) bigger than the skylight through which is cut a pleasingly random pattern of holes to allow dappled light effect beneath
  • The sheet of metal itself would be suspended horizontally perhaps an inch or two above the glass of the skylight without touching
  • Importantly, the sheet would be mounted on motorised wheels so could retracted at will to allow the light to pour in

I wonder, what off-the-shelf parts could be cobbled together to make this?

 

My own first guess was the parts used for motorised sliding gates but I suspect there are better ideas. What do you think?

 

 

 

Edited by Dreadnaught
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Is it just for shade, or solar gain, or both?  Internal or external?

 

Prompted by an earlier thread by @lizzie I'm going to have external roller blinds to control solar gain for my south facing windows.  They use a mesh fabric that allow you to see out when they're down. 

 

I had a competitive quote from this firm:

 

External roller blinds

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I think an electric shutter may be the easiest, as they may be sized to match windows. They will come with motors, remote control wires etc.

 

Though one of those advertising signs made from triangular prisms might be an interesting base to use for a DIY project.

 

F

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Thanks to you all. 

 

To add: 

  • The purpose of this motorised sun shade is decorative and to reduce solar gain. But I am not interested in other solutions to reduce solar gain; my purpose here is to ask about how to build this motorised sun shade
  • I am not keen on roller blinds. I am after a horizontal panel the slides over the skylight, powered by a motor and, I assume, sitting on rails

This will likely be a DIY job reusing bits-and-pieces from other applications.

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1 minute ago, Dreadnaught said:

@Onoff @newhome, that's very kind of you. Thank you. However, I first need to work out a design for an apparatus that could conceivably work. That's quite a challenge for me as I have no engineering experience. I am starting from zero.

 

I still think wind could get behind what are effectively big sails on your flat roof.

 

However.....something like these but with perforated sheet instead of glass?

 

 

 

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