# MS Excel Model of Conical Reflector



## SkenosTech (May 2, 2014)

Being desirous (good word) of understanding some of the intricacies and dynamics of reflector design but not wanting to spend hundreds of dollars on reflector design software (and always being up for a good challenge), I decided to try to model a conical reflector in Microsoft Excel with the ability to adjust dimensions and a number of variables to see the effect on beam profile. The result is linked below.

Please note, I have not checked this against real reflectors to verify the accuracy of the model. As such (being a model) invariably the real world will be a bit different. Reflectors are never ideal in the real world.

With that said, I think it is helpful and useful for understanding some reflector basics. You can see how the reflections are composed and why you sometimes get weird beam profiles with oddly placed dark spots. It is also nice for tinkering around.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0ByhOJRF6FQX4dHFmR1VtOWx0cWs/edit?usp=sharing

Feedback is welcome. (Positive or Negative)


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