ECN Forum Forums General Topics of the Trade Non-US Electrical Systems & Trades Street-lighting?

Ranger,
That sounds like M-Halide starting up, it actually turns all sorts of colours, but many of the changes happen so fast, the eye never picks them up.
Paul, that Pilot+Contactor system must have been expensive.
We had this system over here(and also a variation of it, in some places).
It's not used here now, the streetlighting is on it's own dedicated circuit, controlled by a photcell and contactor on every 3-4 blocks.

We use the pilot system for Hotwater and Street lighting in West and North Auckland.

There are 2 varieties with the Pilot system.

1. Tail and Charley. Lightcell from substation to contactor, string of 20 streetlights, contactor, string of streetlights etc.
2. Express pilots. Dedicated express pilot line feeding contactors only.
Contactors feed streetlights and hotwater control circuits.
In the meterbox there is an IPR relay or contactor which switches the actual hotwater load.

Near substations you see LV 8 wire systems, 3Ø + N, 2 pilots and the two express pilots.
Further away down the line you see LV 6 wire systems.

Most lights are 85, 250 or 400 Watts SOX, high pressure sodiums with the peach orangy glow.

The restrike is reasonably fast. quite often less than 1 minute although the older SOX lamps can take up to 5 minutes for a restrike.

Low pressure sodium has disappeared, perhaps a couple of them are in use in remote areas.
Biggest issue was the poor colour rendering.

None here! We fit headlights on our cars.
Works for me!

Two things I wanted to mention... first: the flourescent battens are indeed plastic, not metal!
The tubes used have weird wattages (forgot the exact numbers) so people (I guess municipial employees) won't steal them.

Second, a new type of street light has popped up where I have absolutely NO idea what it could be.

It's definitely a vapor lamp that can be used in the same fixtures as sodium lights without modifications, but the light is white, slightly yellowish, absolutely looking like an incandescent bulb! I love them because of their real nice light! They feel much brighter than the sodium lights they replace.

True Alan, I forgot about that optional extra we have in our cars.

Even the village (400 inhabitants) where my grandmother owns a house has huge streetlights... metal poles with two flourescent tubes.
One of these beasts manages to shine over the roof of the house next door right into our garden. Our house is on a slope, as is the house next door, and the light is on the street above the two houses, so it's noticeably taller than the roof.

Back when In was younger I remember ALL the city streetlights were mercury vapour, but the lamps I am pretty sure were
"clear", and gave off that harsh blue light as opposed to the whiter light I have seen from a " Coated" mercury lamp..
Most of the older sections of the city that were supplied from the older 4KV system also had a 4KV circuit that originated from the substation and fed pole top transformers that in turn fed the streetlighting. All of these circuits were in turn controlled from the head office downtown. Also was not uncommon if you had a good eye to see the lights of your house flicker when large sections of streetlighting were switched on..
About 14 years ago the city made the conversion to high pressure sodium, gone were all the mercs as well as the central switching system. All new " cobra head" fixtures had a photoswitch in the top and were tied into the mains supplying power to residental and commercial customers, although there are small sections downtown where decorative poles and streetlighting are supplied by a contactor and photoswitch arrangement located in a vault somewhere.
Recently though the decorative streetlighting as well as a few re-located poles outside of the University have been switched to Metal halide..
I find it makes the downtown look
"cleaner" and more attractive which is what this city needs, but for the suburbs, the HPS is here to stay.

A.D

When I was a boy, we had a gas-light standard in the lane by our row of cottages, ideal for honing the climbing skills. It was right outside my uncle Sam's house. The lamp was a glass-paned enclosure with a gas mantle mounted on a cast iron post with a cross bar for a ladder. A pilot light burned continuously and it had a clockwork timer, wound every week by a Gas Works employee, a miserable old git on a rust bicycle as I remember, who stunk of Elliman's Embrocation [ ointment for rheumatics ].
Well, progress caught up with us and sometime in the fifties and without warning it got removed and replaced by a concrete monstrosity, c/w a yellow sodium lamp. But,they put the new standard outside my auntie Annie's house....

JHC! World War III erupted in the lane! Old uncle Sam, by then well into his seventies, had had the benefit of a 'free' bedside light for 45 years and now he had to buy candles! Auntie Annie had now got "his" free bedside light, [ as if she had schemed it all ], but she said she didn't want it as it made her look like she had jaundice! They both wrote furious letters to the town council and Winston Churchill [ and for all I know Harry Truman ], but it stayed firmly planted where it was.

I looked on Google Earth - we sold the house after Ma passed away - and fifty-odd years later, it's still there! Creepy!

Alan

That's the classic Dublin street lamp.





They line all of the streets in the city centre which is mostly georgian.

djk- Now that's what I call streetlights!
Just beautiful!
Are they original gaslight standards do you suppose? - I notice the bars in your 1st pic for the lamplighter's ladder.


Alan