Streetlights

[fan-of-fans]

Does anyone else have an interest in streetlights/yard lights. I always have. I still look at them from time to time. There are a lot of websites with vintage ones, but I always have a hard time identifying them. What has always been interesting to me is when one sees an old model, often unused still hanging on a pole amidsts the trees. There's just some tranquil about that, almost like the old fixture is hiding.

Anyhow the power company here usually used bucket style sodium vapor fixtures for yard lighting. As the bulbs burn out these are being replaced with LED fixtures, don't like the light they produce, it seems dim and cold. I like mercury vapor's blue tint best, but sodium vapor is better than LED IMO.

There are a few older and unsual fixtures still around here, some of which are still lit at night.

Also like the old radial wave style shade fixtures with bare light bulb. And post top lanterns too. We have many of the acorn style here and a few in my neighborhood that look like a cylinder with a hat on top. They look so retro.

 

[cuffs054]

Fan, I agree with you. One of my favorites was a bare bulb with green shade that was outside my GMoms house. There were only two on the long stretch of 4th. St in Blakley PA. I used to crawl out my bedroom window with my trans. radio and listen to WOR at night to the feeble light.

 

[luxkid1980]

I never thought much about street lighting, but I do have a big fascination with landscape lights that are used around the house and in the flower beds. I have bought a few sets that were new on eBay and installed them myself. I think they look great and really have an inviting feel when driving up to the house or walking around outside in the evening.

 

[tolivac]

Yes-I am a "flashoholic" as well as a "vacuumholic" Have some Mercury Westing house Silverliners I salvaged from work when they converted to LED-Also some GE mercury 400W fixtures.Have other HID lights in my collection--I too,like HID better then LED-and a fact that many of these LED conversions don't realize--HID STILL has BETTER Lumens per watt than LED.There is a section of Greenville BVD that is lit with LED lights and another lit with HPS-The HPS is MUCH better!esp when its foggy or raining.There is something about the LED color spectrum that is not quite right-mercury is more pleasant.And the life of LED is still not known.We know that Mercury esp can last longer than other HID lamps.

 

[fan-of-fans]

I remember one of our neighbors used to have an ITT cobra head style streetlight as their yard light and it ended up in the trash. I remember looking at it sitting on the ground, surprised how big it was up close. Of course I was quickly told I couldn't take it home. lol

Landscape lights, I enjoy those too, some of my neighbors have the low voltage sets around their yards. Some of the solar lights remind me of mini post top streetlights. I suppose I could put a bunch of the stems together and make a mini post light with them!

 

[countryford]

I have an antique gas street light from 1899. It had been converted to electric, but some of the original parts are still there. I had it in the backyard at our old house but need to find a new place for it at the new house.

 

[human]

The thing I notice about the new LED streetlights is they offer very bright light, concentrated in a very small area. The orange sodium vapor bulbs are better at lighting up a wide area but they use a lot of energy and I find them unpleasantly harsh, compared to the green mercury vapor lights. All that said, I wish my street had some streetlights. It's very, very dark. I have a sodium vapor light on my chimney but it went out last summer and I haven't missed its harsh orange glow. I've thought of replacing the bulb with a mercury vapor one but it is too high for me to reach so it's on my little laundry list of things I need an electrician to do.

 

[tolivac]

The energy use of a HPS light--is very low compared to others.It has a high light output for the power it uses-and its light output is consistent over the life of the lamp.You will need to use another HPS lamp in your fixture where the lamp has failed.A mercury lamp is NOT interchangeable with a High Pressure sodium one.The amber-orange color of a high pressure sodium lamp works really well in rain,snow,or fog.A good HPS lamp can last up to 20,000 hrs about the same as mercury.

 

[human]

That's interesting to know. I'm assuming it's just the bulb. When the thing was dying last year, it started repeatedly cycling on and off and those cycles got steadily shorter and shorter. Eventually, it didn't even fully come on. It just had a dull green glow that would last for 15 or 20 seconds, go off, for about 10 seconds, and then glow dull green again. Eventually, it just didn't glow anymore.

 

[tolivac]

Yes,the cycling indicates a bad bulb.When the cycling began that is really the time to change the bulb.Cycling bulbs can burn out the ignitor.The ignitor is the part what generates a high voltage pulse to start the lamp-HPS lamps are two electrode lamps-not enough room in the narrow ceramic arc tube for a start probe as in mercury lamps and some metal halide lamps.Just put a new bulb in the light and see if it works.

 

[human]

So I finally got a new bulb put into my dusk-to-dawn light this afternoon. I got one of those extension poles to reach it so I wouldn't have to get up on a ladder. I had to put duct tape on the joints to make it rigid enough to actually twist the old bulb out and new one in. I was also thankful for the pole because it kept me at a safe distance from the wasp nest that was up in the fixture. The inhabitants weren't too happy about having their afternoon interrupted for a bulb change. Now I've just got to wait a few hours 'til it gets dark to see if that fixed the problem.

 

[human]

It's 9:30 and...

...let there be light!

 

[tolivac]

Glad the lamp change worked-your light is shining again!Wonder what the wasps think-they now have light!

 

[human]

I have no idea what the wasps think but I imagine it could be messing with their diurnal rhythms. It was interesting when I removed the old bulb, a couple of them followed it down but they didn't think to follow the pole to the person who was wielding it. They pretty much saw the pole as the enemy and not me.

 

[tolivac]

Good that you and the wasps are happy.Don't get the wasps MAD!!Guess its really their light!You replaced the lamp for them!Like your homemade lamp changer.We have a commercially made one at work.It has different sized heads for different sized lamps.But--may not need it so much anymore since most of the lighting here is now LED.

 

[gottahaveahoove]

Now, those wasps

an read at night, do needlepoint, paint by number, etc.... look what you did for them!