Author Topic: Timers to photocontrol transition  (Read 6840 times)
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Timers to photocontrol transition « on: April 12, 2016, 12:14:23 AM » Author: lights*plus
I have a few questions on the history of photocells:

Generally when did photocontrols or photocells take over from timers? Can you link me to early PC models here on LG?

Were astronomical timers employed in a widespread manner after plain timers? If so when and for how many years?

Thanks.
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dor123
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Re: Timers to photocontrol transition « Reply #1 on: April 12, 2016, 01:51:46 AM » Author: dor123
Here in Israel, photocontrols are used for group switching of the streetlighting of small settlments, some towns and kibbutzim. Towns and large cities such as Haifa, used timers to group to group switching of the streetlgihting. Timers in large cities such as Qiryat Ata recently transited from regular timers to astronomical timers and remote controlled streetlighting systems.
Israel never used photocontrols to switch lanterns individually like it is customary at North American, UK, Australia and New Zealand.
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Please forgive me if my choice of my words looks like offensive, while that isn't my intention.

I only working with the international date format (dd.mm.yyyy).

I lives in Israel, which is a 220-240V, 50hz country.

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Re: Timers to photocontrol transition « Reply #2 on: April 12, 2016, 03:33:58 AM » Author: lights*plus
Very interesting. Dor you say they recently moved to astronomical timers, do you mean in the last few years, or in the last couple of decades? Also does Israel observe something like standard time, then switch to daylight saving time like we do here in Canada & the USA?

I have never seen a timer out in the field here in Canada, then again I've only observed lighting practices for 15 years or so.. If we had timers I must've missed them. The problem is that December nightfall is at about 4:30pm or 16:30, and June nightfall is near 21:30 or 9:30pm. But imagine the adjustments that have to be made with mechanical timers in Edmonton at 53°N (nearly 1 million citizens) or the city of Edinburgh at 56°N (half a million people).

Everything here seems to be switched with a photocontrol on top of a panel or with a completely enclosed mini-photocell with just a 1 cm diameter window sticking out of the panel - and this is usually at eye or head-level. With just a pen light (lol.!) it's very easy to turn off the lights this panel-box feeds. And yes there are many places where each fixture has it's own PC switching it.
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dor123
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Re: Timers to photocontrol transition « Reply #3 on: April 12, 2016, 04:38:28 AM » Author: dor123
Haifa moved from timers to a remotely controlled streetlighting system with astronimical clock, more than ten years ago. Qiryat Ata moved to this system this year, and so Nesher.
We does moves from standard time to daylight saving time at Friday beteen 23-29 March, and returning to standard time at Sunday between 25-31 October.
Before 2013, we moved from standard time to DST at the last Friday before 2 April and returned to standard time at the last Sunday before י' תשרי (Jew month)
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I"m don't speak English well, and rely on online translating to write in this site.
Please forgive me if my choice of my words looks like offensive, while that isn't my intention.

I only working with the international date format (dd.mm.yyyy).

I lives in Israel, which is a 220-240V, 50hz country.

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Re: Timers to photocontrol transition « Reply #4 on: April 12, 2016, 12:45:06 PM » Author: hannahs lights
Where I used to live photocells were used on main road lighting in the 70s I think but side streets had to wait until the 1990s before that individual timeswtches were used they were a big pain because we used to get a LOT of powercuts where I live now I think photocells were used right from the introduction of LPS streetlights
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Re: Timers to photocontrol transition « Reply #5 on: April 12, 2016, 01:06:49 PM » Author: Medved
For the timers vs photocell transition I would guess the trigger was the moment, when the simple photocell designs (a NC relay controlled via a CdS resistor) become available and reasonably reliable, so becoming way cheaper (because way simpler) and easier to maintain (no needs to readjustments) than the clock work timers. So I would guess when the CdS resistors became mass produced.

Do I understand well the "Astronomical timer" is just a timer synchronized by the astronomical day/night cycle (so uses a photocell to maintain the clock set correctly)?


Here, historically the street light control is centralized, from the era, when they were switched manually (with one control switch for the whole city, district or village).
Mainly in big cities, the street lights were used as a means helping to stabilize the power grid generation/load balance.
Now many controls are upgraded to some sort of automatic control, either by a daylight sensor, timer or some combination. The smaller municipalities tend to utilize plain photo sensors, the larger tend to use some more advanced control (often even with dimming).
Individual lantern control never made it to the roads, as the light circuits are kept always separate from the general power distribution and recently equipped with with dedicated meters (lights are operated by towns/cities, who is then billed for the consumed energy by the power utility company). In such configuration the centralized control offers quite significant energy saving with no extra installation cost (each controller consumes few W of power all the time, so when one is common for 100's of street lights, the saving is not that small). Plus it allows easier maintenance (the more complex parts like the controls are only in a dedicated, easy to access cabinet, the lights are then really containing just the lamps and ballasts).
Ironically recently became quite common to install public disaster warning systems in the form of loudspeakers on the light poles, where the signal is distributed by radio waves. And these systems are then connected to the streetlight circuits for power. And because the streetlights have no power during the day, these loudspeaker systems are powered from a battery, which is then recharged at night.
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Re: Timers to photocontrol transition « Reply #6 on: April 12, 2016, 03:06:29 PM » Author: lights*plus
I think that astronomical timers are mostly digital programmable timers. But I believe a mechanical astronomical timer is (or was) possible.

From what I've googled: They have built-in or pre-programmed almanac programs (algorythms for mechanical or software for digital) to self-adjust according to the times of sunrise and sunset for a given latitude. For good digital timers, automatic daily regulation of the on-off times is possible.
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Re: Timers to photocontrol transition « Reply #7 on: April 12, 2016, 09:02:53 PM » Author: sol
Around here, street lights (on streets) are mostly individually controlled with a twist lock photocell. In cities, some installations are group switched with a control box (probably pole top) and a PC and relay(s) as needed. Some municipally owned decorative lights are also group switched, probably with a PC. Timers (astronomical or standard) are usually only found on private properties (stores, businesses, schools, universities, etc). The ones that have standard timers need to be adjusted and sometimes they are not.

We observe daylight time but I cannot see why astronomical timers need adjustment. I have one controlling a table lamp and I have turned off the daylight time function and it works on standard time all year. The adjustment of clocks have no impact on the sunrise and sunset times, after all.
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Re: Timers to photocontrol transition « Reply #8 on: April 13, 2016, 12:08:04 AM » Author: Roi_hartmann
In Finland I've seen only smaller villages (and rural area where streetlights are used) etc to use photocontrol and even then there is usually one controller for larger group of fixtures. Then there is usually also a timer that switch off the streetlight after midnight and turn them on again in the morning around 5 or 6 a.m.

Larger towns and cities have centralized control. In here Rovaniemi. every other streetlight is switched off after 11 p.m. to save electricity and turned on again in 5 a.m. I think that practice started after 70's energy crisis. I think controllers are located at the transformers as you can hear "clack" like a big contactor operates when streetlights are turned on.

And ofcourse, in summer, there is no need for streetlights so they remain off roughtly from may to august. (and at the end of the summer, they do lamp replacement etc services)
« Last Edit: April 13, 2016, 12:11:00 AM by Roi_hartmann » Logged

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Re: Timers to photocontrol transition « Reply #9 on: April 13, 2016, 03:17:48 AM » Author: dor123
Here in Qiryat Ata, the roadlighting controllers are located in service closets like this one that controls all the road lanterns from Zebulun/Shivat Tziyon squate, to Zebulun/Lilenblum.
I think that the controllers here remained the same, but in the past, its on/off times were adjusted manually, and currently by an astronomical clock.
In both case, the adjusting is done remotely I think.
In Haifa, when they moved to the current system, the former one, was actuall timer switches (And photocontrol in several locations). Currently it is similar to Qiryat Ata.
Since Qiryat Ata moved from manual adjusting the time, to astronomical clock, all of the controllers switchs on and off at the same time, with only few seconds elapsing between one controller to another.
« Last Edit: April 13, 2016, 03:23:00 AM by dor123 » Logged

I"m don't speak English well, and rely on online translating to write in this site.
Please forgive me if my choice of my words looks like offensive, while that isn't my intention.

I only working with the international date format (dd.mm.yyyy).

I lives in Israel, which is a 220-240V, 50hz country.

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Re: Timers to photocontrol transition « Reply #10 on: April 13, 2016, 08:16:20 AM » Author: Solanaceae
Older neighborhoods I noticed (the ones close to downtown) have these weird 175w LM NEMAs that don't have photocells. I saw them leading into the neighborhoods, but some neighborhoods have a mixture of those NEMAs, and some Cobras as the NEMAs go down. I knew of two places where there were single NEMAs just on their own: a pole that was across from church; it glowed dimly in its last days, was told it's a weak ballast. The second one is by a baskin robins and dunkin donuts and I see it working at nite, but no photocell is in sight, I don't see one on any poles. Maybe it's controlled by a timer within the business.
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Re: Timers to photocontrol transition « Reply #11 on: April 13, 2016, 01:45:01 PM » Author: hannahs lights
The streetlights here are all on photocells however the ones in sidestreets are switched off at around 1 AM in summer and 12AM in winter theye are supposed to come on again around 5 AM but don't always do it I'm not sure how this is done I imagine there is a timeclock wired in series with the photocell. Our lights are wired from the regular Street mains in fact when they dug up the street a while back I could see the streetlights were connected to a convenient house supply cable
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Re: Timers to photocontrol transition « Reply #12 on: April 13, 2016, 07:56:26 PM » Author: sol
The second one is by a baskin robins and dunkin donuts and I see it working at nite, but no photocell is in sight, I don't see one on any poles. Maybe it's controlled by a timer within the business.

Some very old mercury vapour street lights in my area have no photo control on the fixture. Instead, a remote twist lock receptacle is installed near the mounting point on the pole and a standard PC is fitted. I have no idea why such an arrangement has been done, but there you go. They are mostly cobra heads, though.
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Re: Timers to photocontrol transition « Reply #13 on: April 13, 2016, 09:10:07 PM » Author: Solanaceae
I saw the same setup while going downtown, there were new nema heads that were MV and no PC. Some Cobras that were on poles had PC holders, but idk if it had short caps.
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Re: Timers to photocontrol transition « Reply #14 on: April 14, 2016, 06:04:11 AM » Author: Ugly1
  In New York City,astronomic time switches manufactured by General electric and Sauter Electric were used until about 1953. At that time,the first generation of twist lock photoelectric controls became available and were used for all new installations. Time switches remained in use on the existing incandescent street lights. By 1966, almost all NYC lights had been converted to mercury vapor luminaires equipped with photoelectric controls.
  Mechanical astronomic time switches are still available from Tork and Sangamo(UK). The  astronomic dials from both of these manufacturers allow you to select either sunrise to sunset or civil twilight lighting schedules. Civil twilight was the standard lighting schdule for municipal streetlighting. Civil twilight is when the sun is six degrees below the horizon. This results in a burning time of 4050 hours in a standard year,and about 4066 hours for a leap year.
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