Parking Lot Light Bulbs

[MasterSolenoid]

I was walking thru a parking lot and saw someone changing light bulbs.
I talked to the man and got some trivia and two old bulbs.
Both (large) bulbs are 1,000 watts (FRONT is 60 watt standard bulb)
Bulb on RIGHT: Mounted vertically - 12,000 hours of use / horizontally - 9,000 hours

 

[JTK]

Cool. Probably high pressure sodium or metal-halide lamps? I'm surprised they weren't replacing the fixtures for ~40watt LED fixtures instead of burning 1000 watts. Everything is going LED.

I love old lighting. They swapped the road way lights out to LED on my street a year or two ago. The mercury vapor lights that were near my house were from the 1960's. I hated to see them go.

There's some ancient holophane glass mercury vapor lighting still in use in some of the buildings where I work. The buildings were built in 1950. Unless a rare power outage, these lights are never turned off and I know the bulbs haven't been changed in the 25yrs I've been there. They're really dim and green, but still lit up. If my math is right, 25yrs alone is 219000 hours.

 

[MasterSolenoid]

Cool. Probably high pressure sodium or metal-halide lamps? I'm surprised they weren't replacing the fixtures for ~40watt LED fixtures instead of burning 1000 watts like everyone else is doing.

The packaging shows: Multi-Vapor Lamp .... contains Mercury

 

[tmorris1]

I don't think I would use 1000W if I turned every light on in my house.

 

[Duffyjr]

They just replaced the street light in front of my house with LED and I have to say I like it. It shines more up and down the street instead of 360. It still lights up the front of the house but not as bright.

 

[mk378]

Those are metal halide. The metal is thorium, which has so many spectral lines it appears white, and with relatively low energy to ionize the thorium an intense white light is produced. The same principle is used in gas lantern mantles. Metal halide bulbs still use mercury to drive the process since it ionizes easily.

The addition of other metals especially thorium greatly increases efficiency over a pure mercury lamp. The obsolete mercury technology generates much UV light directly out of the bulb capsule. So the outer bulb typically had a phosphor powder on the inside to convert UV to visible light like a fluorescent bulb.

 

[blupupher]

They just replaced the street light in front of my house with LED and I have to say I like it. It shines more up and down the street instead of 360. It still lights up the front of the house but not as bright.

They did our subdivision a few months ago, and agree, I like the light better. More focused on the roadway and more even light under the fixture, plus I never have liked the color temp of the old light bulbs.
They say the update will pay for itself within 5 years with the power savings switching to LED.

 

[Hyundai Respecter]

They replaced all the HPS street lights in my area to LED. Every town seems to use a different style fixture, I guess they got the best price. The state uses a different style too. But one thing they all have in common is a high failure rate.

 

[SHOZ]

I always gyrated to the guy who maintained the light fixtures in a factory. Rebuilt many a HID of various types. Usually where the light was installed too, seldom any bench work.

 

[97prizm]

That's interesting on the hours, depending on being mounted vertically versus horizontally. You wouldn't think it would make any difference. The Lexus Dealership that I worked for a few years back, went to led and it saved $1,000 a month! On the other lot with the same dealership it saved $2,000 per month.

 

[kschachn]

FWIW there is a How It’s Made episode on making these or similar lamps. I was amazed at the amount of manual labor that went into the construction.

 

[K-Man]

Years ago the electrical-supplies wholesaler I worked for arranged for me to get training in lighting: old-style fluorescent and the high-intensity discharge (HID) lamps: high-pressure sodium, mercury vapor (by then considered obsolescent), and metal halide (considered an update of the mercury vapor design).

Everything I learned about those types of lighting has become obsolete because of high-output LEDs. But you know what? In most ways, provided the LEDs and their controlling electronics are of high quality (ha ha), these are far superior to the old stuff.

HID lamps required an expensive glass bulb, a heavy ballast, and a capacitor. Any of those three could fail. The outdoor fixtures required a heavy glass lens for thermal and moisture protection in the weather. These are especially noticeable on old streetlights on poles. The LED replacement fixtures are far lighter.

I don't miss the old stuff at all. Even electricians are recommending not bothering with trying to maintain the old stuff and simply retrofitting to LEDs, which are usually cost-competitive with replacing a ballast or 1000–watt bulb.

Look at the picture in the OP. When I do, I say, good riddance.

 

[Jetronic]

Cool. Probably high pressure sodium or metal-halide lamps? I'm surprised they weren't replacing the fixtures for ~40watt LED fixtures instead of burning 1000 watts. Everything is going LED.

I love old lighting. They swapped the road way lights out to LED on my street a year or two ago. The mercury vapor lights that were near my house were from the 1960's. I hated to see them go.

There's some ancient holophane glass mercury vapor lighting still in use in some of the buildings where I work. The buildings were built in 1950. Unless a rare power outage, these lights are never turned off and I know the bulbs haven't been changed in the 25yrs I've been there. They're really dim and green, but still lit up. If my math is right, 25yrs alone is 219000 hours.

Led gives less light per watt still (around 30% less), but of course better colour reproduction than low pressure sodium

 

[mightymousetech]

That's interesting on the hours, depending on being mounted vertically versus horizontally. You wouldn't think it would make any difference. The Lexus Dealership that I worked for a few years back, went to led and it saved $1,000 a month! On the other lot with the same dealership it saved $2,000 per month.

Yup. Our condo building did an LED retrofit for all the common areas. Cost about $100k, payback was 18 months.

 

[JTK]

Led gives less light per watt still (around 30% less), but of course better colour reproduction than low pressure sodium

Led gives less lumens per watt? Sure doest seem that way when you figure 40-50 watts worth of LED blasts out the same visual amount of light as a MH or HPS lamp that consumes 10x the wattage.

Yeah the CRI of HPS has always been horrible.

 

[IcarusLSC]

Wait till those LEDs start flashing :/

 

[Jetronic]

Led gives less lumens per watt? Sure doest seem that way when you figure 40-50 watts worth of LED blasts out the same visual amount of light as a MH or HPS lamp that consumes 10x the wattage.

Yeah the CRI of HPS has always been horrible.

the typical streetlight is 100 ish watts though

 

[Owen Lucas]

Some of the LED conversions have been turning purple, add to that some flashing LED units and it will feel like you are driving in a disco.

https://journalnow.com/news/local/s...cle_feb9765e-084f-11ec-899e-77c8bb7450fd.html

 

[JTK]

the typical streetlight is 100 ish watts though

The new LED street lamps / roadway fixtures by me that replaced all the old ~150-250 watt HPS and MV fixtures are something odd like 26-36 watts.

They are blindingly bright directly beneath them, or if you're in their glare path. The manufacturer got the color/rendering dialed in pretty well with them as they give off a warm-ish light. The fixture's housings are designed to reduce light pollution and cast the beam straight to the ground, but out in the country where it's super dark at night, or when the ground is wet, the old HPS and MV lamps did a better job helping you see because light was scattered all around.

I'm all for reducing energy consumption and light pollution, but to me it's backfired a bit. Since LEDs consume so much less wattage, people are going overboard with them IMO. There's businesses by me that have their buildings and parking lots lit up like a football stadium with these big obnoxious LED flood fixtures and wall packs. Surrounding residences and businesses are all lit up as a result.

The old MV, HPS and MH lighting had to go at some point. Replacement parts are not available and replacement lamps are genuine junk. I hated to see the ancient MV roadway lights go away by my residence because I thought it was cool those suckers worked every night since the 1960s. I'm sure they were re-lamped many times over the years, but I know the last 10yrs they weren't touched.

We've still got tons of vapor/explosion proof HPS fixtures at work. A new lamp might last 2 months or 2 yrs, when they used to last many years. We've been either retrofitting them to LED or swapping the fixtures one by one as time goes on.

 

[Jetronic]

I noticed the same, and if the fixture isn't aimed directly at the ground there's a lot of glare.