I’ve noticed that cobra heads, NEMA heads, the colonial style post tops are very rare in MH for some reason, I’m not sure why. I’d get that MH has a short lifespan and can fail catastrophically but they put out a much better light than HPS or mercury lamps do, they’re almost as efficient as HPS. Yet, MH never was common for street lighting, especially in highways or on residential streets. Also, if they used glass refractors, exploding lamps shouldn’t be as much of a concern. The glass on cobra heads is thick and shouldn’t shatter if a bulb shatters. Plastic cobra heads with MH lamps may be problematic and I’d hope those weren’t used.

I’ve only seen MH cobras on Stringtown Road in the Grove City, OH. I notice that MH flood lights and decorative fixtures are common, as well as shoebox lights for businesses. I’ve only seen cobra heads in HPS (MV ones aren’t common here, but I’ve seen a couple before).

Post tops (outside of acorns and decorative lights), are also rare in MH, I’ve only seen the four-sided coach style lanterns in HPS. I’ve only seen NEMA heads in MV and HPS. 99% of the cobra heads I’ve seen have been HPS.

Even MV cobra heads are rare in my area, especially since Toledo (one of the only cities in Ohio with a lot of MV) went LED, and so did associated suburbs. Now, MV cobra heads may be even rarer than MH ones in my area.

MH is even rare on apartment and condo complexes (in my area, we have a bunch with colonial style post tops), a mix of GE TC-100, AEL 247, and Cooper Traditionaire/Lexington, and all are HPS with some LED spot replacements. MH post tops can only be found on like early 2010s luxury complexes if found at all. MH isn’t even common on private developments (if they’re residential property).

The only common fixtures in MH are indoor HIDs, shoeboxes, flood lights, canopy lights, and acorns, then why aren’t cobra heads? And, why are acorns common in MH but not four-sided colonial style lanterns?

In your area, are Mercury vapor or metal halide street lights more common? Do you have MH (or even MV) cobra heads in your area? Do you have MH or MV post tops in your area? Do you have any MH NEMA in your area?

Even MV fixtures are rare in my area, the only MV fixtures that are somewhat common in my area are NEMA head fixtures.

And, even in the 2000s, in some cities, why did they use MERCURY VAPOR cobra heads for white light and not just MH cobra heads? In the 2000s, mercury vapor was highly outdated and they weren’t even as efficient as CFL. MH would be more efficient, brighter, and much better than mercury vapor. I never understood why some cities used MV cobras into the 90s and 2000s if more efficient and better MH ones existed.

In greater Los Angeles, where I currently live, I remember quite a few installs of metal halide cobrahead street lights. As of today, Pasadena still has some metal halide cobrahead street lights still in use.

 I live and work in Grove City . MH sucks for streetlighting ! The ones on Stringtown ALWAYS have several that are either dim or dead.  HPS & MV are superior to MH in the facts that they last longer , they're cheaper , they don't dim out as quickly , if at all in the case of HPS , neither care about burning position , they're less sensitive to cold weather and HPS does put out more lumens per watt than MH , PLUS , probe start MH has the slowest restrike time of all  . There were 2 intersections on Gantz road lit with 4-250 MH cobras each . THEY SUCKED !!!  The new LEDs that replaced them are the same color but consistantly brighter ! Plus , in the time they've been up , I guarantee at least 2 of the MH lamps would've failed already !

 Also . don't forget about West Broad street at I-270 , miles of 400w PSMH cobras . Being replaced by LED was the best thing that ever happened to the area.

 Honestly , of the 3 , MH is the best as far as color redentition but who cares about the color of the shirt of the guy walking down the side of the road ? All that matters is that you can SEE him .

That’s on poor maintenance. Those fixtures must not be relamped until the bulbs totally die if they’re all so dim. If they were maintained better, they should be bright.

I do agree that if a city HATES fixing street lights or does not maintain them right, they should use anything but MH (the only worse thing they can use would be incandescent). MV lamps absolutely DO dim, and they dim heavily, not as fast as MH, but I’ve seen dim MV lamps as well. HPS lamps don’t dim. Have you’ve seen how dim MV lamps can get?

Incandescents, which were used before MV and HPS became common, absolutely sucked for street lighting, while great CRI, they had a very short lifespan and were very inefficient. I can’t imagine how many times those had to be relamped. Fluorescent and CFL weren’t good for street lighting either because they got dim in the cold.

It seems that Stringtown Road in grove city, Ohio is maintaining their street lights poorly. I hate poorly maintained MH lights in general, if you want to repair them less often, just use HPS, MV, or LED.

MV lamps don’t dim as fast as MH, but they do in fact dim over time. Honestly i think MH might be better for street lighting than MV nowadays because most companies no longer make MV bulbs, so if the bulb is super dim, their only choice is to buy a new fixture. The older mercs that are still made are those Feit brand ones which are probably so bad of quality that they have the same reliability as an MH lamp (Feit isn’t and never was exactly known to make good HID stuff). I’ve read that even GE discontinued their MV lamps.

Feit only makes MV lamps in clear too, and clear MV has a very poor color rendering and the color they output is just a daylight color with horrible color rendering. Coated MV was more common for a reason.

MH street lights + poor maintenance is not a good mix. For a while, MV was probably best for poorly maintained fixtures because the bulbs would output useful amounts of light for at least 10 years.

Now I know why MH wasn’t used on street lighting, they only last about 6,000 hours in a horizontal position (like in a cobra head). MH isn’t good for street lighting unless they’re very well maintained, in my opinion.

MH NEMA heads I know why those weren’t used, if they were used, people underneath them would be at risk of getting injured or burned because the bulb exploded while they were under it, or if used as a street light, the lamps could potentially explode on people’s cars.

 Correct ! MV does indeed dim but not anywhere near as fast as MH .  I've seen MH installs where a lamp gets replaced and a month or so later , when the lamp next to it dies and gets replaced , the new one is noticably brighter !

 As for Stringtown , Most of those WERE originally 400w HPS on tall davit poles spaced far apart before those stupid decorative MH things were installed ! The new system uses WAY more power as the fixtures are lower and closer together and I think the road looks dimmer than it was with the HPS ! here's the old HPS system : https://maps.app.goo.gl/8wQLtew2GZzjCSmSA  I don't think they fix anything unless they're specifically told to .

 Then there was this : https://www.lighting-gallery.net/gallery/displayimage.php?album=5202&pos=301&pid=176395

Yep, they did originally use HPS I guess.

Maybe all the cobra heads were HPS, some parts of stringtown road seem to have MH cobra heads that likely were HPS.

Definitely poor maintenance. MH shouldn’t be used if the maintenance is poor. You seem to hate MH lights in general.

Some of the cobra heads had yellow NEMA tags so some were converted.

Some of the fixtures were decorative in 2009 images though not these specific ones, it is the style without the “hat”, those might’ve been HPS.

 I don't hate MH In general , Just for streetlighting . I own a lot of MH stuff .Stringtown had all HPS from I-270 to the west when I started working there in 1994. Not sure when the MH cobras were installed east of I-270 .  The black cobras east of 270 all have red tags so yep , originally 400w MH . https://maps.app.goo.gl/JmR5Ev5GrBbxcV7H7  All of the decorative teardrops were MH when new .  The newest ones on Gantz Rd. and at the far east end of Stringtown are LED .

So, you like MH for indoor HID lighting, wall packs, and on private property, but not on streets.

Do you like MV, HPS, or LED the most for street lighting?

I don't hate MH In general , Just for streetlighting . I own a lot of MH stuff .Stringtown had all HPS from I-270 to the west when I started working there in 1994. Not sure when the MH cobras were installed east of I-270 .  The black cobras east of 270 all have red tags so yep , originally 400w MH . https://maps.app.goo.gl/JmR5Ev5GrBbxcV7H7  All of the decorative teardrops were MH when new .  The newest ones on Gantz Rd. and at the far east end of Stringtown are LED .

Most had red tags but a few of them seemed to have yellow tags. The ones that were always MH likely replaced mercury vapor fixtures, as MH cobras more commonly replaced MV’s rather than HPS, but maybe I’m wrong, since some of the MH’s seemed to have replaced HPS. A lot of the ones with the red tags likely replaced mercury vapors.

It was much more common for cities to install MH cobra heads to replace MV ones rather than HPS ones, that’s what Charleston, SC and Cincinnati, Ohio did. Greenville might’ve too. Columbus is mostly HPS but there seems to be some MH in the city and associated suburbs. Most MH cobra heads were used to replace older mercury vapor fixtures. There is a good chance that a lot of the MH cobras replaced MV’s rather than HPS.

I agree that MH is problematic for street lighting if they’re not maintained well. I don’t hate MH if they’re well maintained. There is a reason why streets used HPS instead.

A lot of cities seem to use the decorative fixtures (like the tear drops or acorns) in MH, and I’ve been to subdivisions with MH acorns with multiple dim or dead lamps.