The 7 Steps to Make a Fiber Optics Ceiling [Pictures and Video]

Introduction

I’ve always wanted something as amazing as star ceiling for my bedroom, home theater, and gaming setup. There’s a few different ways to create these amazing entertainment room features but there’s not a ton of guidance on the web about how exactly to do it. 

The process requires handy work some may not be initially comfortable with (installing the fiber optics lights, drilling holes in the ceiling board, and outfitting the panels to match your space dimensions). After doing several hours of intensive, original research, i compiled this articl to be the exact guide you need to create one by the time you’re done reading this. 

If you have any more questions or comments, I’ll leave my contact info at the bottom. Let’s get started (Materials list will be at the end of this article).

1. Measure and Mark Your Space The Right Way

You’ll need to measure the perimeter of the space you want to create the ceiling for- this will help with all your planning and budgeting. 

Make sure you have an outlet installed directly above it in the center or somewhere within the proximity of the ceiling. If you are willing to spend $70-100 to have an outlet installed in the center, I recommend it because threading the optic cables into this central point will disperse the weight of the optic cables.

2. Make the Frame 

There’s two ways to do this, one is the budget and expedient option and the other is for a more permanent setup.

You can easily go to Lowes or Home Depot to buy these planks. These are unfinished plywood slabs. The below picture is what you what you want to create- lay all the panels out until they are about a foot apart from each other.

From there, you want to get a light board slab of medium or light density. You can attach it to the bottom of of the plywood planks via earth magnets or screwing them in directly. See below:

Paint the side you want completely black like the photo above. You can either attach this board to the plywood planks before or after you paint it.

Important note: If you don’t want to use a light density baseboard, you can instead use a felt cloth material which comes in all black. Stretch this material as tight as you can before stapling it down and you can achieve the same effect with your star ceiling going forward (see rest of steps)

3. Mount the frame using hooks or screws

Below is an example of drilling the frame pieces into the ceiling with the intent of attaching the baseboard via earth magnets to the material. You can do it this way or if you made a wooden frame with a baseboard, consider using metal threaded hooks around the perimeter to secure it to your ceiling

4. Thread the Fiber Optic Cables

First, grab a white sharpie and put dots all around the baseboard / panels where you want to put your stars (get creative).

Second, poke holes using drill bits of varying size starting at 1/8th inch to create contrast between the star sizes.

Third, put a dab from your hot glue gun at each hole and then thread the fiber through the hole. Doing it in this order will create the perfect hole opening with the glue gun and keep the process simple.

Fourth, cut the optic cable with scissors- the light will still travel to the edge of the strand and achieve the same effect.

Important Note: you don’t have to cut the fiber optic cables flush to the ceiling, it’s okay for them to hang down a little bit. Looking up, you won’t notice them and especially when it’s dark. The more they hang down, the brighter they will appear.

Fifth, use a hot glue gun to attach the earth magnets if you don’t already have a plan to mount the baseboard like the picture below:

If you decided to use the soft black cloth option, purchase this felt on Amazon and place this material in-between the ceiling and the baseboard to reduce backlight bleed and ambient light you don’t want showing other than the fiber lights themselves.

If you decide to go with the cloth and felt option vice the baseboard for the ceiling itself, make sure you pull these materials as tight as you can so the bulk of the cables don’t cause a sagging effect

Important note: even though earth magnets are incredibly strong, make sure to still screw the perimeter corners into the panel ceiling. Speakers systems and bass especially will cause vibrations throughout the room and might shift the magnet attachments over time.

6. Fasten baseboard to the panel via drill or magnets

Make sure you have 1-2 people helping during the panel placement into the ceiling so they all secure evenly at the same time to everything.

At this point, all you’re doing is popping the baseboard into place via earth magnets or drilling the entire frame into your ceiling. According to Google, drilling into a ceiling a couple inches is perfectly safe for these kinds of projects. If you have concerns about potential plumbing or electric lines in your ceiling, consult your floor plans for your home.

7. Color code your stars using the dedicated app

Once everything’s mounting to the wall, go into the app settings of your fiber optic kit to create the constellation desired. Some people even line the edge of their star ceiling with LED light strips to create an even cooler effect like the picture below:

Materials List for Fiber Optic Ceilings

You may or may not need everything on this list:

1. Optic Lights
2. LED Border Lights
3. Plywood measurements from Lowes or Home Depot for the frame and baseboard
4. Black paint or use this black table cloth if you don’t want a wooden baseboard
5. Drill bits of varying size, Earth Magnets, Glue Gun, Paint Brush
6. Electrical outlet installed in the ceiling
7. Threaded Hooks to make mounting the entire frame to the ceiling easier

Can you see the twinkle during daylight?

If you have your star ceiling optic lights not flush against the ceiling, you will be able to see them like the picture above. It depends on the level of brightness you decide to get with your kit and how washed out the rest of your light setup there is.

Keep in mind your ceiling will look like a black slab during the day when it’s not on, so make sure you really want to have one in a space that you’ll also view in normal light!

Do I have to remove ceiling fans and other possible obstructions?

You do not have to remove obstructions for a star ceiling. You would just need to cut a hole in your frame or cloth around the fan and then emplace it. It would take extra work but I came across a few examples that did that when I was doing my research.

How much do fiber optic star ceilings cost?

There are a couple of things that affect the price of a fiber optic ceiling. Some of them are more apparent than others but I tried to include everything you would want to know so nothing takes you by surprise.

Most of the setups I found online were built for around $300-700 after factoring in the installation and the actual fiber optic ceiling. 

• The physical factors that affect the price start with how big you want it to be (length and width, usually measured in feet).
• Star density: how many stars do you want throughout your entire ceiling? Do you want them to be able to change colors or all be a uniform white light?
• Do you want filament or cable optics? Filament optics are thinner and you can use them to put in significantly more lights than cable optics. Cable optics are thicker and good if you don’t want dozens of light scattered across your entire ceiling (only wanting a few here and there)

I tried really hard to get an estimate of the cost breakdown with actual numbers! But there are endless possibilities and price ranges that you can expect to see when making one of these.

The best option to get the most accurate price quote is to call a local company and provide them with your ceiling’s dimensions. I’ll link to the various companies you can use at the end of this article.

Check out this really useful graph to determine how much fiber you’ll actually need. You’ll need to measure the dimension of your ceiling before utilizing the graph.

Here’s a Useful Formula To Determine How Much Fiber You’ll Need:

Estimate how much fiber you need: ROOM LENGTH X WIDTH. Calculate this number and then use this graph (taken from thefiberopticstore.com).  

I found a good example from the site listed above as well. They wrote an article about one of the builds they did and here are some of the details. The company created a pirate ship themed movie theater with a fiber-optic ceiling. They had 1000ft of fiber cord, .50mm thickness (average), at 110 volts for less than $500! I’m not sponsored at all from their site, but I highly recommend checking it out if you want more details about this specific one they did.

What Affects the Cost of Fiber Optic Ceiling?

There are some important things you need to know that affect the overall cost of installing a ceiling. Whether you decide to have a professional set up or completely do it yourself, here are the obvious (and not so obvious) factors you need to consider:

• Size: the size of the board itself is actually not as important, but you will have to inevitably increase the star density as a result. If you only increase the size, you likely won’t have the amount of dispersion you want to create a true “star gazing” effect.
  
• Star Density: This one depends completely on you. Some people like a crap ton of stars populating the entire board. Others prefer to only have a few here and there in an irregular pattern. Finding your own fiber optic cables is the best thing you can do before having a professional set it up. Deliberately supplying your own cables gives you way more personalization than giving full autonomy to the setup guy.
  
• I highly recommend you call a local company to get a realistic quote. As much as I want to put in a bunch of charts that provide price ranges, it’s honestly not helpful! It always comes down to personal preferences based on the factors mentioned above. Getting a quote is really easy. Just measure your desired ceiling and give them a call
  
• Outlets: More cases than not, you’ll need to install additional ones throughout your ceiling. Most people choose to do a drop-down ceiling instead of replacing the foundation. That means the electrical cords will have to be routed in between the original ceiling and the fiber optic platform. It takes some decent planning and some sweat equity to make it happen the correct way, but it’s well worth the investment. Expect to need a couple hundred dollars to pay for the labor of installing new ones.

A Great Example of a DIY Fiber Optic Ceiling

This is a great video that does a great job showing what a complet DIY set up would look like. If you notice in the video, you can see they had to have deliberately placed outlets on the side and even on the roof. That part will most likely require expert set up unless you already know how to do that.

• They had to paint their room black and incorporate an LED backlight to make the stars more apparent. These little details go a long way, and if you can afford the additional investment of the paint and using simple LED strips.
• Notice the original angle of their ceiling. Their original foundation was at a 45-degree angle but their finished product was almost completely flat. The most natural look you can give your ceiling is to do it the way they did it and to create a “drop-down” ceiling effect.
• They used a simple, wooden skeleton platform. You could easily assemble the same, crisscrossing design they did. In fact, this one works best and a lot of people go this route. Notice how all they had to do after was staple a hard covering paper material to the structure where the optical lights would go.
• The most complicated part is organizing the fiber optic lights and securing them in an appealing fashion. One side of their board looked absolutely chaotic! They carefully threaded each of the fiber optic lights through the drilled holes and then used zip-ties and glue to fasten the bunched up cables.

Great Resources For Fiber Optic Installation

I came across some great sites that provide some extremely useful insight if you want to take the first steps into creating your ceiling. Many of them have customer service numbers that you can call to get quotes even if they don’t provide direct services in your area.

1. TheFiberOpticStore– this site helps complete newbies better than any of the other ones. They provide a ton of in-depth information on how to set up your first one. They also have a page for commonly asked questions and provide detailed answers. I also like how they post some of their biggest projects and explain how they professionally did it.
   
2. Wiedmark– This company is best known for having dedicated fiber-optic kits you can order straight from Amazon! They also have some useful, but not so common tools for installing your own drop-down ceiling. They have a decent range of prices for their tools.
   
3. CosmicRooms– I love this site! I found it a long time ago on Pinterest when I was still living with my parents (I know, corny) and was trying to create something similar to a fiber optic ceiling. These guys create a “mural” like the design on your ceiling that completely resembles and gives a galactic illusion. It’s essentially a mural that makes you feel like you’re stargazing.  They claim they have a secret way of creating them, which is what also makes them so unique. Check out their site for more details.

Other Important Things to Know 

If you’re really planning on making one, make sure you are installing one in a room that can block out ambient light. Otherwise, you loose out on the true effect it can have. I did a lot of research on ceiling set-ups and I highly recommend making one with an LED backlight. It makes the overall set up look so much nicer and complete (I’ll definitely be outlining the platform with some ambient light).

My Recommendation For Removing Light Pollution

My family ordered these blackout curtains a couple of years ago and we’ve been using them since. They are great if you feel you need to remove some more ambient light. I can also say they will be super useful in making your future fiber optic ceiling really “pop” (and they’ll dramatically increase your projector image quality). It’s nothing too fancy, but it definitely does the trick and it’s worth mentioning.

You will definitely need ceiling access from above when installing a fiber optic ceiling. It’s best if you can find a way to utilize the above attic for routing some of the cords or even for outlets. More cases than not, you will be making your fiber optic ceiling a “suspended ceiling.” This means just putting the platform under the real ceiling and shaving a few inches off the height of that room.

Conclusion

Thanks for reading! If you have any other questions or comments, feel free to reach out to me at entertainmentden.ns@gmail.com. I’m also taking article suggestions so feel free to send those over if you have them too! This is the same article I’ll always come back to whenever I move and want to set up another fiber optic ceiling. Hopefully this was able to clarify how simple the process can actually be and how cool of a concept it can be for any home theater!