Author Topic: An unusuall phenomenon of a style in the street lighting in USA  (Read 3915 times)
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An unusuall phenomenon of a style in the street lighting in USA « on: April 29, 2010, 09:13:44 AM » Author: dor123
In contrast to another regions of the world, in USA there is an antique phenomenon in street lighting that is also present today, in that a specific style of street lighting (Cobrahead) become the most popular in ALL countries of USA. This is in contrast to another regions of the world that this phenomenon is really non exists (When the popularity of a specific brand of street lights and the shape of them varies between each settlement or city in a country). I think this is mainly because of the favorableness of the wide american public of the shape of the street light (And indeed preservation of street light is really exist only in the USA [And in Israel for example, ALL of the street lights at their end of service life are scrapped or used as a temporary lighting at refurbished roads]). But in any case i don't know why.
« Last Edit: April 29, 2010, 09:49:36 AM by dor123 » Logged

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Re: An unusuall phenomenon of a style in the street lighting in USA « Reply #1 on: April 29, 2010, 10:57:18 PM » Author: Patrick
I'm not sure that I see the difference.  Cobrahead is quite general and could encompass just about any curved (not completely square or rectangular) streetlight mounted on a bracket that has an integral ballast and a horizontally positioned lamp.  Some are more cobra-like in appearance than others.  The manufacturers and styles used here vary by city and utility company as well.  Are you saying that in other countries there tends to be a greater variety and that the look of the streetlights has changed more over the years?  I'm not all that familiar with street lighting in Europe/Asia.
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Re: An unusuall phenomenon of a style in the street lighting in USA « Reply #2 on: April 30, 2010, 02:29:57 AM » Author: dor123
Yes. Unlike in USA where ALL of the street lighting regardless of appearance are cobraheads and manufactured by GE or Westinghouse/Copper Lighing, in Europe the variety of shapes, styles, looks and manufacturers of the street lighting is much greater. I think the same is Asia
« Last Edit: April 30, 2010, 02:31:42 AM by dor123 » Logged

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Re: An unusuall phenomenon of a style in the street lighting in USA « Reply #3 on: April 30, 2010, 02:30:54 PM » Author: joseph_125
I'm not sure I can agree with that statement, Over here in Ontario we have lots of different models and manufacturers of streetlights used. The exact models used varies between cities and utilities, with some like MTO opting to use mostly GE streetlights for their low mast applications and some like Toronto using lots of different styles.

The streetlights used in Ontario vary from the vintage looking Gumball to the modern American Electric Corvus and the boxy Unidor 400. We also use the Coach lantern and the Durastar 3000. You can also visit my streetlighting gallery Here for more pictures of Ontario streetlighting like the highmast lights used along freeways.

The brands of streetlights currently and former used in Ontario include American Electric/ITT, General Electric, Cooper Lighting, McGraw Edison, Westinghouse, Hubbell Lighting, Powerlite/Sylvania, Lumec, Schreder, Philips, Holophane and, King Luminaire
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Re: An unusuall phenomenon of a style in the street lighting in USA « Reply #4 on: April 30, 2010, 02:57:50 PM » Author: dor123
joseph_125: The writes on my main post was based at the entry "History of street lighting in the United States" at Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_street_lighting_in_the_United_States. From it i understood that the "Cobrahead" breed of street lights and especially the OV-25 fixtures from Westinghouse become (And still are) the most popular and beloved street light in the USA, thing that wasn't happened (And still isn't happens) in any region in the world outside north america (Europe, Asia, my country etc...). An evidence of this i can tell you is at the israelis company Gaash lighting, that very influenced from this phenomenon in which they are actually manufactures their own cobrahead street light with the name "American". Go to their english site: http://www.gaash.com/eng/HTMLs/home.aspx and see at yourself.
« Last Edit: April 30, 2010, 03:04:48 PM by dor123 » Logged

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Re: An unusuall phenomenon of a style in the street lighting in USA « Reply #5 on: May 01, 2010, 02:20:32 PM » Author: Patrick
I think you're right that typical cobraheads in the USA have a style that is distinct just as countries in Europe, Asia, and the Middle East have their own distinct styles.  That doesn't mean there isn't also a variety here too.

Westinghouse streetlights are not nearly as common in the U.S. anymore, at least not those bearing the Westinghouse name.  Westinghouse sold their street lighting division to Cooper in the early 80s and cooper remains one of the major U.S. manufactures of roadway lighting today.

The Gaash American 25 looks a lot like an American Electric 115.
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Re: An unusuall phenomenon of a style in the street lighting in USA « Reply #6 on: May 04, 2010, 05:19:02 AM » Author: dor123
If there are another countries that have a popular symbolical style of street lighting, it is from only one manufacturer each country. This in contrast to the USA in that a multiple amount of manufacturers produce the SAME style and shape of the streetlighting (Cobraheads, NEMA heads and Gumballs are produced by nearly all US lighting companies)
I think this is not happens in any country in europe where each manufacturer have its own varity of shapes and styles of streetlights.
The huge amount of trapezoid lens streetlights in Haifa in the 90' for example are all street lights of the same company (AEG Lighting, Germany) and their popularity is no related to the public, but because of a commercial tender between streetlights importers that the council of Haifa did, and the importer of the AEG lightings have won in it to supply AEG streetlights to the council of Haifa and the trapezoid ones (AEG Mini Koffer, Koffer and SeilKoffer series) were the only streetlights that the importer had at this decade. This is in contrast to USA in which the popularity of the Cobra heads, Nema heads and gumballs is accured because of the favorableness of the american public to them and as a result all of the US lighting companies produces these exact three shapes and styles of the street lighting.

Edit: Also of interest, The full cobrahead lantern is considered the world only street lights that have a diffuser instead of a transparent lens. While in most street lights outside north america, where the lens is only to protect the lamp from the environment and any diffusing cause by them is unwanted, the lens of the cobra heads is designed to intentionally diffuse the light everywere, causing the optical system of them to suffer and the light pollution from these street lights to be more large that any european street light. Not surprising that in Israel the cobra heads with diffusers are only in private installation, and the ones in the city of the goverment installation are all very old installation that will soon be replaced with european streetlights. The "American 25" street light of Gaash lighting in Israel is also in service only in kibbutzes and small settlements where they buys more streetlights from Gaash lighting.
« Last Edit: May 04, 2010, 06:02:49 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: An unusuall phenomenon of a style in the street lighting in USA « Reply #7 on: May 04, 2010, 05:41:49 PM » Author: joseph_125
This in contrast to the USA in that a multiple amount of manufacturers produce the SAME style and shape of the streetlighting (Cobraheads, NEMA heads and Gumballs are produced by nearly all US lighting companies)
While most manufacturers here have similar models like the cobrahead, their are numerous significant differences in design and the shape between manufacturers such the obvious differences in design and materials between the American Electric Durastar 3000 and the American Electric 115 is obvious even upon first glance. Both of these streetlight models are classified as cobraheads and are made by the same manufacturer.

As for the NEMA heads and gumballs, there are numerous variations in their design depending on both the manufacturer and the time period which the luminaire was manufacturered. For example GE first used a round body for their NEMA heads but now their latest NEMA head the SA-201 series has a more compact and blockier body than their NEMA heads produced during the 1960's for example. 

The term "Cobrahead" and "NEMA head" are just loosely defined terms that decribe a specific style of streetlight and therefore is subject to different interpretations in the sense of design between manufacturers. 

-------------------
Edit: Also of interest, The full cobrahead lantern is considered the world only street lights that have a diffuser instead of a transparent lens. While in most street lights outside north america, where the lens is only to protect the lamp from the environment and any diffusing cause by them is unwanted, the lens of the cobra heads is designed to intentionally diffuse the light everywere, causing the optical system of them to suffer and the light pollution from these street lights to be more large that any european street light.
The diffuser is called a "Prismatic Refractor" by most manufacturers and more commonly called a drop lens. This design allows the light to be spread out in different predefined distribution patterns (IES TYPE 1 to 5 I think) depending on the installation of course which by swapping the refractor allows lighting designers to change the light distribution without the need for a specific luminaire for each light distribution. While it's true that a poorly engineered refractor will cause light spill above the horizontal and hence skyglow, properly engineering and design of the optical system in general allows for a smooth light distribution and also minimizing light spill above the horizontal.

Some streetlights here use a flat glass or a sag lens both of which is transparent and does not diffuse the light. Their being specified in a lot of new installations here by utilities during past couple of years. I personally like the drop lens refractors because I personally think they have a smoother light distribution and hence light the road more uniform at night.

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Re: An unusuall phenomenon of a style in the street lighting in USA « Reply #8 on: June 22, 2010, 08:30:20 PM » Author: streetlight98
"cobrahead" and "gumball", etc.. are loosely used terms to describe streetlights and donot confine to a small group. (The Westinghouse OV50 is very different from the GE M-250R2.)
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Re: An unusuall phenomenon of a style in the street lighting in USA « Reply #9 on: July 06, 2010, 11:04:28 PM » Author: kai
I think you're right that typical cobraheads in the USA have a style that is distinct

Indeed. Cobraheads were to me already 25 years ago the typical American streetlights, since they appeared in just every street scene from the USA. And they were pretty reminiscent to the OURW series from Mesko (Poland), so we had our cobraheads, too...

Prismatic structures can be found in the bowls of some current European models, too. Off-hand Leipziger Leuchten ASL 70 and Siteco Großer Klassiker come to mind.
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Re: An unusuall phenomenon of a style in the street lighting in USA « Reply #10 on: August 31, 2015, 07:31:00 AM » Author: dnadon
a guy,jordan maxwell,will tell you that's about ancient egipt,sun god and the omipresent phallic symbolism.
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Re: An unusuall phenomenon of a style in the street lighting in USA « Reply #11 on: August 31, 2015, 04:27:40 PM » Author: hannahs lights
I can't say about streetlights in Europe but in the UK streetlights in each town are decided on by the local authority who presumably take the advice of the power company that serves that area
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Re: An unusuall phenomenon of a style in the street lighting in USA « Reply #12 on: September 07, 2015, 09:01:07 PM » Author: DaveMan
dnadon, this is not appropriate for the site, nor is it relevant. Thanks.

a guy,jordan maxwell,will tell you that's about ancient egipt,sun god and the omipresent phallic symbolism.

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Re: An unusuall phenomenon of a style in the street lighting in USA « Reply #13 on: September 08, 2015, 02:29:35 PM » Author: M250R201SA
Where I live, the most popular Cobrahead is the M250-R2.  I used to live in Kenosha, WI and for some reason, I never looked up to see what the cobraheads looked like, but that town is full of them.  A lot of them are HPS, and when I lived there, there were still quite a few MV Cobras. 
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