Patent ID: 7490967

Claim:
An illumination system, comprising: a housing; a plurality of solid state light sources that are mounted to the housing; a flexible optical cable with a first cable end and a second cable end, said cable having a plurality of optical fibers in which each of the plurality of optical fibers has a first end and a second end and is optically coupled at its first end to one of the plurality of solid state light sources, wherein said cable has a sheath that maintains the plurality of optical fibers in a predetermined spatial relationship to each other along their respective lengths such that the second ends of the plurality of optical fibers lie substantially in a single plane; a cooling system that is thermally coupled to the plurality of solid state light sources, wherein the plurality of solid state light sources comprises at least six light sources, wherein each of the plurality of optical fibers is butt-coupled to one of the plurality of solid state light sources wherein, A. one of the plurality of optical fibers is a central optical fiber and B. at least five optical fibers inside the sheath are peripheral optical fibers that are: i. positioned substantially parallel to the central fiber and ii. distributed evenly around the periphery of the central fiber.