Wow Mike, you really roasted him.
About the LEDisease being green. The circuit boards are colored green, if that counts for anything.

LOL

I missed the news – this is good news!

I don't like HPS street lighting, it gives to our cities a look of industrial zone. It's bad for the trees, it's bad for the human mood.

I believe that if HPS came in the 1930's and mercury came in the 1960's, political and commercial claims would have been the opposite: "HPS have low efficacy due to the low CRI", "mercury offers better vision and lasts longer", "let's ban HPS", etc.

A new HPS looks much brighter than an old dim mercury lamp; however a new mercury lamp looks way brighter than an EOL HPS

For 15 years, I've seen a few commercial streets (or small villages) using metal-halide lighting, which gives a nice incandescent-like feeling and is just more pleasant.
Now are coming various led street lights, which are better than the metal-halides in terms of efficacy, lumen, and colour maintenance. Some show a cold tint close to mercury which I like (but many people don't), however more and more led street lights show a warm/neutral tint that is very pleasant.

I don't think we should replace an old given technology by a given new one. We should keep mercury lamps as well as wooden public chairs, granite setts, etc., where it does make sense. They make our cities and villages more "affordable".

There's the old saying "if it ain't broke don't fix it". The guvment encourages peeps to be less wasteful, yet they trash perfectly good fixtures for LEDisease that won't come close to lasting 50 years like the MV fixtures they replaced. And since my eyes naturally suck, the LEDs are worst with eyestrain and give me a massive headache. An example of this would be at the state fair, they replaced almost every fixture with LED equivalents, yet left the HPS that lights the concert area alone. That just goes to show that the guvment (and DSA) hate MV and MH.

I too agree that LED has a future, but all these people seem to be getting on the LED bus far to early and not giving these LED companies time to work out the kinks. So far I'll stick with the classics such as Magnetic ballasted fluorescents and HID because these technologies are simple and have proven their worth. I can rest assured using typical magnetic ballasted HID that they will give me the light i need and they will not fail prematurely like most LED has so far done.

So far most LED luminaires do not have replacement LED modules and the entire fixture has to be replaced and thats a pain compared to just opening a cover and replacing a simple bulb.

Now a great Idea for a streetlight LED would be to have a retrofit kit for existing cobrahead fixtures. They should design LED clusters to be housed inside a typical glass envelope the same size and shape as the HID its replacing and the LED ballast can be installed where the sodium choke goes and the lamp can still use the existing socket. The fixture, optics and light distribution would be the same, all that would change is the colour and power consumption. This would be a truly greener alternative since no fixtures would be scrapped and less LED circuit boards would be disposed since the driver would be designed to last and the lamp itself can be replaced as normal.

@ Lightingguy1994: This is what I would like to see widespread. A lot less waste, quick and easy to install, and likely much cheaper than buying brand new fixtures. A much better alternative to scrapping billions of fixtures world-wide.

@streetlight98,

I never said that LEDs are the end-all and are the perfect choice for all applications. You read that in between the lines. My point is that LEDs are more efficient than legacy sources when it comes to energy consumption. As to your complaint about me coming on this board acting like I know everything, your point is mute. I don't know everything and neither do you. As to your conspiracy views about LEDs, you can post them an some conspiracy forum. You may think that I'm a member of the greener party, but you couldn't be more wrong. I support LED for its ruggedness, its versatile CCT, its good CRI when compared to HID (except for CMH. If you want to be mean spirited, go ahead, but I'll not join you.

When you compare LED to the other high efficiency sources, the distance is not large and often in favor of the non-LED source (the CMH for example, but even Fluorescents win sometimes). Proper choosing a light source is not done by efficiency alone, especially when the gap is small

The other benefits of LED are no less debatable. For example :

The low wattage multi-point source nature of LED means big problem to design streetlights that will be efficient yet won't glare like laser in the eye

The CRI while on paper may appear better, the light is not - depending on who you ask. Remember that CRI is only a proposed way to estimate/quantify how well we see color. It is not like voltage or temperature that you can measure in absolute units. Go ahead and try to sum up the view you see in front of you, in its whole detail, in a number... You'll have trouble putting it even on a 1..10 scale

And it goes on and on....

The bottom line is, to choose a light source you have to have honest information about each, be familiar ith the specfics of each, and with your application too. Claims like "EDs are more efficient than legacy sources when it comes to energy consumption" (that was a Ctrl V), when not meant about one specific LED light vs. one (or more) specific alternative choice we are weighting in for an application, dont get us any forward in this

When information is provided and the proper weighting is done, some applications will see LED and some will see other stuff. But then, dont be surprised when LED become "another ligth source taking a share" as they should be, and not "one light source taking everything" like they are today....

I never claimed to know everything so yes, a moot point.

I'd like to note that this is the second time you've made a reference to so-called "LED conspiracy theories". Do you mind elaborating on that? What do you believe to be conspiracy? Like I said before, I've never seen a 100% honest comparison of LEDs to other lighting source. And in response to your comment about how "LEDs are more efficient than legacy sources when it comes to energy consumption," well of course LEDs will save money when retrofits are 2/3 of the brightness. Installations of LEDs are almost ALWAYS dimmer than what they replaced because if the light levels were matched, the LEDs wouldn't save much money, if any. If people are only concerned about saving money and don't care about matching light levels, then just install lower wattage "legacy" fixtures, as you put it. A true replacement light source will save a lot of energy and maintain existing light levels.

In response to your questions before about the lumen losses from older optics, how CRI plays a roll in visual acuity, and the difference between raw lumens and visual lumens, none of that matters. The only thing that matters is the light level of the LEDs on the ground compared to the light level of what it replaced. And I've yet to see an LED installation where brightness was matched to what it replaced.

As for your accusations of me being mean spirited, reviewing my post now I see was a little harsh. I'm just sick of the same narrow minded cliche claims about LEDs from so many people. Still, no excuse to take my aggravation out on you. You are entitled to your opinion of LEDs vs. All Others, as am I, however it's important to address the negatives of a technology rather than just its positives. The negatives are just as important if not more so than the benefits. What concerns me is that you give the impression that you will not hear of anything but pros about LEDs. Take into consideration the cons of LEDs as well and see if they're still as viable a light source as they are claimed to be by manufacturers. If you feel that I am wrong, then prove what I've said wrong. I don't mind a valid counterargument. I believe a small-scale debate is not necessarily a bad thing, as it brings a number of valid points from both sides of the equation.

I agree, LED has its short comings. I never said or implied that they are the answer for every lighting application. For an example, my local Trader Joe's retrofitted all of their 2X4 troffers with LED kits. Lumen levels are up from the previous F32/841/T8 fluorescents. How much? I don't know. I don't think they'd like me to run around in their store with a light meter and find out, but it is brighter. Do I like the retrofit? No. Why? because the glare level has been ramped up by at leased 100%.

Want to know what I use at home? I use halogen, commercial grade E26 base CFL (4100K 82 CRI), linear T8, and some LED. I personally like LED for its instant strike, and for its low heat output when compared to tungsten sources.

As to conspiracies, there's a lot of them online about how the guvmint is using LED lighting against us (60 Minutes had an episode on the topic). You were coming across like one of them in your detest of LED. However if you hate LED, you are free to your opinion.

I'm narrow minded? You jumped to conclusions about me without really looking at what I said. I'm not an avid supported of LEDs across the board. However, I like the appearance of my neighborhood with LED when compared to HPS.

When I mentioned the optical losses of a lumenaire, I'm taking about the coefficient of utilization. You're talking about lumens, but how many lumens are lost in the lumenaire?  My point is HPS may throw out a lot of lumens, but is it light that you can really see by? The lumen level may be high, but the awful color rendering makes most of the lumens generated pretty useless to the human eye (not as bad as LPS which has a negative CRI). If the light source instead was  MH, I think your argument for legacy technology would have a better leg to stand on, especially if it is ceramic. The reason why LED works as a replacement for HPS, is that it delivers the same amount of useful lumens for us to see with. You may not agree, and that's alright, but if HPS was so much better that LED, why is it that utilities are replacing in mass (its not just for energy conservation)? This reminds me of when MV was replaced in mass with HPS in the early 1980s. Many people complained about the yellow light (and a guy I knew at a local utility complained about the high maintenance cost and short lifespan of HPS). Now people are complaining about the high CRI LED, and are nostalgic for HPS. Who want the street lit with yellow light?

@streetlight98

Thanks for the video link, that is pretty close to my idea, except i cringed when i saw they took the bowl off lol, I really hope a retrofit comes out where the bowl and fixture stay and only the insides are changed to LED! The bowl staying in place would remove the horrible glare caused by the exposed diodes!

Obviously I've had my head up my ass. I'm sorry about that. I didn't mean to jump on you. LEDs are a heated topic for me.

That is interesting that Trader Joe's actually had an increased light level from their conversion. I agree with you about the glare of those T8LED tubes. In my opinion, they should installed LED-specific fixtures for the job instead of retrofitting fluorescent lights. LEDs are very focused and fluorescents are just the opposite, so using LEDs in a fluorescent fixture doesn't work for me. However, I see no reason why existing cobraheads can't be retrofitted with LED modules.

I agree with you about residential use: LEDs ain't half bad. The definitely save energy and I also enjoy the low heat from them. The only drawbacks right now are price and the fact that the light doesn't shine 360 degrees. Again, like with fluorescent fixtures, I think it would be best for new fixtures to be tailored around LEDs. Fixtures like recessed cans look great with LEDs. Base-down fixtures and fixture with glass shades not so much...

The only problem I have is LEDs replacing higher wattage HIDs, such as 400W and 250W lamps. And the fact that places base LED installations off of a % of energy savings versus matching light levels. For instance, in Rhode Island, in order for a municipality to qualify for state financial aid for LED installations, the LED fixture MUST use 40% less energy than the HID it replaces, with no regard for matching light output period. So a 50W HPS replacement can use 26W max. No matter how inefficient the optics are in the 50W HPS cobrahead, there's no way the light levels would be the same. The technology just hasn't gotten that far yet.

Again I agree with you about having my street lit with LEDs instead of HPS. However, I want the street just as bright and I want cobraheads (preferably drop lens ones) used for the LEDs, not these hideous flat panels with horrible distribution patterns. A big issue I find with LED street lights is that the beam is too tight, making huge dark regions between fixtures (meaning fixtures need to be installed closer together to reduce dark spots on the road, or mount the lights higher, which will increase light trespass onto property along the street).

Yep, a lot of lumens from the HPS are "invisible" to the naked eye. I've been saying that for years when comparing HPS to PSMH/CMH and even MV. A 100W MV gets 4000 lumens. A 70W HPS gets 6300 lumens. Yet when the two are compared side-by-side, the 100W MV is actually brighter. And although 175W MV gets around 7800 lumens (for /DX coated, clear is about 7000), the light is more effective than a 9500 lumen 100W HPS. So in reality, the light levels for LEDs should be matched based on the light output of the MV that the HPS replaced. For 50W and 70W HPS, that's still 4000 lumens. But for 100W HPS, a 7000 lumen fixture would be appropriate. However, 23000 lumen fixtures (to replace 250W HPS/400W MV) do not exist. At least not ones that use less than 250W. They do exist for wattages under 400, so if your town is all MV, you can still save some cash by going LED and you get to keep the white light but loose the smooth, even light distribution and soft white light (assuming /DX lamps are used instead of clear).

Even with HPS, you can see the light level is decreased with using LEDs. This picture shows an accurate depiction of the interchange (Ive seen it in person; they didn't try and make the LEDs look brighter than the HPS lights, which is quite common with a lot of retrofit "Before & After" pics). Ironically, around here the utility refuses to offer LED street lights! I mean, why would they want to? They cost more than HPS and use less energy. So the utility company looses money twice by switching over to LEDs. As an alternative, cities can purchase the lights from NGrid for $1 per light (based off the price of the lights when they were bought less depreciation, which ends up at about $1/light) and then install their own LEDs. But in order for the city to get State funding, they have to install LEDs that use at least 40% less energy than the HPS they're replacing. That's not the right way to go about it in my opinion.

Trust me, I'm loving the white light. My complaints are about the ugly looking fixtures, the glare, the small/tight distribution pattern, how manufacturers stretch the truth about LEDs to make them look better than they really are (all they are is "just another light source" yet manufacturers tout them as some crazy cure-all for the worlds issues lol.). LEDs do have a promising future, and I admit I'm bitter toward them because of all the still perfectly functional fixtures that will get scrapped as a result of them being installed, but once everyone goes LED you know they'll come out with something else superior to LEDs. 10 years ago LEDs were barely on the radar. Now they're all the rage. I just think the push of LEDs is happening too fast. Almost like they want everyone using LEDs before we realize what a mistake it was. When the crews are in my neighborhood putting up LEDs maybe I can get some of the old MV fixtures that are still left up. Ones that were missed in the 90s HPS takeover.

@streetlight98,

I find it interesting that your local utility only went HPS in the '90s. Why did they wait so long? Where I live (Pacific Northwest) BPA (Bonneville Power Administration, a federal government agency  based in Portland, OR) required all utilities to replace their MV lights with HPS in 1982. Out here, we have a low kWh rate when compared to the east coast. In a matter of about two months, all street lighting was HPS. (I preferred DX MV, and it was quite a change to the eyes.) My local utility had quite a few MV's that needed to be re-lamped simply from lumen depreciation, so when the HPS lumenaires were installed, it really seemed a whole lot brighter...but that was before the HPS lamps started failing prematurely.

I understand your point on the marketing used by lighting companies to promote LED. Their claims fall short. (RAB lighting comes to mind with their wall packs.) "This 13W LED is equal to a 100W MH!"...or something to that affect.

This thread has seriously been derailed from it's original topic but what the heck, let continue with LEDs. I have made remark that todays premium(So from well known brands) LED lamps with E27 base (220-240V) are usually rated just for 10 000-15 000 hrs and if you compare power consumption of CFL and those LEDs most of LED lamps are barely more efficient than CFL. It just feels that now when "hype train" has stopped the realities with led is revealing. I mean I would have expected little bit longer life for a premium led lamp. What happened to all those "Leds are extra long lasting"-advertisements?. I have to say that these Led retrofit lamps for incadescent have come long way and are pretty usefull nowadays but somehow feel just barely better than CFL.

wow 1982 is quite early! HPS was around in small numbers starting in the 1980s. We had three major electric companies in Rhode Island. The first and largest, NECo, had used a small amount of 100 and 250W HPS "test lights" in the 80s. They never caught on until between 1991 and 1994, when they installed HPS lights by the thousands. The second electric company, BVE, started experimenting with 100 and 250W HPS in the 80s. In the early 90s they did most of their HPS installations. the third company, Newport Electric (sister company to BVE) has used some 70W and 250W HPS lights in the early and mid 80s but never actually ended up replacing the mercs on a large scale, so Newport Electric still has mostly MV lighting!

NECo used all drop lens lights (except in the 80s, when they used 100/175W MV full cut-off GE Powr/door lights. These lights were also offered in 70 and 100W HPS). In the 80s they offered limited 70W HPS lights but around 1989/1990 they stopped offering 70W and offered 50W instead. I've only seen a handful of NECo 70W HPS lights. Virtually all are 50W. IMO 70W would do the job better. 50W HPS is way too dim. BVE used drop lens up to the early/mid 80s when they went all FCO for HPS lighting (MV was no longer offered, though I'm pretty sure NECo offered MV through the mid 90s). Then around 1995-ish they went back to drop lens. Newport Electric was the same as BVE, though the only HPS lights installed during the "FCO era" were to replace MV fixtures that didn't light with a new lamp and PC (or damaged).

In the town of Jamestown, RI (a NECo municipality) there are still incandescent street lights! As long as the municipality doesn't request a lighting upgrade, the lights get to stay. Our current utility, NGrid, which now owns all the former utility companies' territories, does not service the incandescent lights anymore though. So as they require service they slap up a 50W HPS.

A lot of the early 90s HPS fixtures here actually still have their original lamps! If not, the lamps had lasted until within a few years ago. Anything over 7 years is pretty impressive for HPS IMO. In the 80s, the GE 50W HPS lamps were very bad. GE lamps have always been used here for HPS. NGrid used them too until about 2008 when they switched to Sylvania. The Sylvania lamps are yellower (not as pleasant a color as the GEs, which are more peachy looking) and they don't last as long. They maintained 100W MV (only 100W MV) fixtures until 2014 and the Sylvania 100W MVs were a million times better than the GEs though. Some GE 100W mercs were OK but others would just go out after a few months to a year and others would cycle just like a HPS! NECo maintained 175W and 400W Mv fixtures until around the time NGrid bought everyone out in circa-2000.

For whatever reason NECo didn't use 50W HPS until 1990-ish, offering 70W HPS instead (which had very limited installations; most 100W MVs were not replaced until the 90s). Yeah the lights here are maintained on an individual basis. There was no group-relamping, so there were a lot of dimmed out mercs here with a fair amount having replacement plastic refractors that had browned out and blocked a quarter of the light right off the bat.

One thing I miss is the 60s MV fixtures. The cobraheads made back in the 1960s were built like tanks. I have a 1965 silver GE M-250R, 175W MV. The 60s GE cobraheads are undoubtedly the most robust street lights ever made. Those things really are tanks. The 70s GEs were so-so. By the 80s they learned how to cheapen the casting (make it thinner) and still maintain a strong casting so the 80s GE lights were a little better than the 70s ones in my opinion. Since the start of the 90s though, the quality of light fixtures has tanked. GE still makes a decent cobrahead (but for how much longer? I have a feeling GE might terminate all their non-LED products in the next decade). GE is my "specialty" when it comes to street lights since most of my collection is GE (just happens to be what was most commonly used around here). I have some Westinghouse and Cooper Lighting fixtures and there's nothing wrong with them but they just seem inferior to GEs in my opinion. The hose clamp to secure the lamp socket on a lot of Westinghouse lights seems a little redneck to me lol. Westinghouse knew how to make a good looking cobrahead though. I'd love to get an OV-15 someday. I have an OV-25 remote ballast from around 1960. Nice solid light. Had a lot of pitting and rotted insides though. The GEs stand up to the elements better here. Granted, we have a very brutal climate for metal with our humid salty air.

Out here it went like this with the HPS conversion: 100w/S54 replaced 175w/H39, 200w/S66 replaced 400w/H33, and 400w/S51 replaced 1000w/H36. (They're was come 300w incandescent lamps as well. Those were replaced with 70w/S62.) There has never been to my knowledge any 50w/S68 lighting ever used by any of the utilities around here.

I got a good laugh about your hose clamp comment. I happened to like the Westinghouse Silverliner (had 9 at one time) also had 4 GE fco cobraheads (HPS) and 3 GE droplense cobraheads (MV) as well. Those were some heavy duty lumenaires. To bad Westinghouse cheapened their lumenaires even more before selling to Cooper.

As to MV lamps, my favorite was always the Westinghouse Lifeguard line (DX of course!). Second was Sylvania, (a very good lamp back in the day). Third was GE. Today, it would have to be EYE who would get the blue ribbon.

I actually saw my first HPS lumenaire around 1978. The main city where I grew up was installing them here and there, especially where there had been some infrastructure improvements. They were using 400w and 275w (which was replaced by the 250W/S51 system.) I remember a local shopping mall replacing the whole lumenaire due to not being able to source 275w lamps.