Fluorescent street lighting

[init4fun]

I would like to commend Telecolor3007 for your command of the English language . I know of native English speakers who couldn't spell "Fluorescent" to save their lives and to see and read your well written posts time after time made me want to say "Great Job" . I realize with the availability of "spell check" anyone SHOULD be able to produce great writing in any chosen language but a quick look around most English speaking forums will prove that it's usually the native English speakers who make the most blunders . Your well written posts make them a pleasure to respond to , rather than the "seek & find" often played while reading some native speaker's posts .

So again , great job , and in this case I'm sorry I don't have much to add to your Fluorescent street lighting discussion . For a guy as technically minded as myself I'm now kinda surprised I've never really given much thought as to what's lighting the roads beyond my two (or four) headlights .....

[NowhereMan 1966]

Originally Posted by init4fun

I would like to commend Telecolor3007 for your command of the English language . I know of native English speakers who couldn't spell "Fluorescent" to save their lives and to see and read your well written posts time after time made me want to say "Great Job" . I realize with the availability of "spell check" anyone SHOULD be able to produce great writing in any chosen language but a quick look around most English speaking forums will prove that it's usually the native English speakers who make the most blunders . Your well written posts make them a pleasure to respond to , rather than the "seek & find" often played while reading some native speaker's posts .

So again , great job , and in this case I'm sorry I don't have much to add to your Fluorescent street lighting discussion . For a guy as technically minded as myself I'm now kinda surprised I've never really given much thought as to what's lighting the roads beyond my two (or four) headlights .....

Well, I proved your point, I needed spellcheck to spell "fluorescent."

[Jon A.]

Originally Posted by init4fun

I would like to commend Telecolor3007 for your command of the English language . I know of native English speakers who couldn't spell "Fluorescent" to save their lives and to see and read your well written posts time after time made me want to say "Great Job" . I realize with the availability of "spell check" anyone SHOULD be able to produce great writing in any chosen language but a quick look around most English speaking forums will prove that it's usually the native English speakers who make the most blunders . Your well written posts make them a pleasure to respond to , rather than the "seek & find" often played while reading some native speaker's posts .

So again , great job , and in this case I'm sorry I don't have much to add to your Fluorescent street lighting discussion . For a guy as technically minded as myself I'm now kinda surprised I've never really given much thought as to what's lighting the roads beyond my two (or four) headlights .....

No kidding, and some native English speakers are such poor spellers that they give the impression of never having finished the third grade.

As for your car, am I correct in guessing it is equipped with sealed beam headlights? I don't see many vehicles that are old enough to be so equipped.

I don't recall seeing any fluorescent street lights, but I did get an antique three-tube T12 fluorescent fixture for free last week. Two tubes were done for but the ballast is fine. It has a rapid-start ballast but it also has knock-out plates for preheat starters. It's filthy right now but I cleaned a small part of it to see how it will turn out; it's in very good condition, perhaps all that filth helped to preserve it. The fixture was made by Electrolier Manufacturing Company in Montréal; I haven't been able to find out when they were in business.

[zeno]

I vaguely remember fluorescents at gas stations & private lots.
They used tubes & were set at a 45 deg angle.
The big thing especially out west is the BIG telescopes can be
made useless by some lighting for some types of research.
Been a big push for years to change out the bad lighting & make
it much more directional. http://curious.astro.cornell.edu/abo...s-intermediate
I sure would like darker skies. You can still see the milky here way but
the sky glow is closing in on us.

73 Zeno
LFOD !

[Tim R.]

Saw this one in Santa Monica, CA a week ago. There’s quite a few of these old fixtures out there still, often hidden in plain view.

[MIPS]

Originally Posted by Telecolor 3007

Still beats me how they work fine at minus 20-25 degress Celsius. In an 1962 book I found out that the ones used in Romania worked 'till -15 ° C.

I was googling around during lunch and this post came to mind when I found something interesting.

Apparently GE offered some sort of a "cold"climate" option where a thermostat and heater was installed in series with the line power or photocell. You would set the photocell to turn on while it was still a bit brighter outside, or presumably turn the lights on earlier and it would first activate a heater in the lamp head to get the internals and the tubes above freezing, then the thermostat would satisfy and while switching the heater off the lamp would switch on and the ballast would take over from there.

[nasadowsk]

There's still some LOW pressure sodium around where I grew up on Long Island. You know, the ones that start out neon red and turn yellow after a while...

[Olorin67]

around 2000 i lived in a small town in eastern Michigan called Cass City, it still had flourescent streetlights. but last Time I drove through they had been replaced with high pressure sodium.

[Telecolor 3007]

@ init4fun : well, it's good there is "Google" for help. Sometimes I don't know how to write some words and I'm looking for help.
English is somehow my second language. My parents intended that I will learn English from an ealy age, I studied English at school starting with the 2nd grade. To be onest only at 15-16 I got more into understanding the language and I still have more to learn.

[NowhereMan 1966]

Originally Posted by Telecolor 3007

Did any one had the chance to see the glimps of fluroescent street ligthining. I mean with fluorscent tubes, not High Pressure Mercury "bulbs".
In Romania we had them too. Nicknamed "lămpi banană (banana lamps)", officially code C.E.B. 340. But they dind't last long here either... 10 maxium years. I've seen just a pair in my life (but some one found another ones in Bucharest). They where in a non-working condition on a pole on an old gas station near me. Got repaled in the early '000 (2000's). Well, the gas station got closed in a few years and the colums left (some prewar gas staion from Bucharest had underground toilets and above there where masonery colums) got demolished (except 2) at the end of last year or at the begining of this year.
But I'm curios how was the street lighting with fluorescent tubes?

I don't recall fluorescent street lighting but I do remember seeing them in parking lots of malls, stores, gas stations. I remember around 1979 or so, there was a drive from mercury bulbs to sodium vapor, Mom never liked the orange glow either. There were a few old areas of Pittsburgh that still retained the old pre-WWI street lighting with the old incandescent bulbs up into the 1990's. I did a look on the internet for those old street lamps and the ones I remember date from 1912 or so. Here in Eastern Ohio, they did a lot of work to convert to LED's

[Telecolor 3007]

You still had incadescent street lighting in the '80's? Wow.

Chicago: http://www.cera-chicago.org/Blog/3304314

[NowhereMan 1966]

Originally Posted by Telecolor 3007

You still had incadescent street lighting in the '80's? Wow.

Chicago: http://www.cera-chicago.org/Blog/3304314

Yeah, we did, I know some areas in Pittsburgh that had it until the 1990's. I remember driving my grandmother at the time and she said that she "remembers those old streetlights from the time when she was a little girl." (she was born in 1912) IIRC, I remember seeing some of them in the older Robinson/Kennedy Township areas, McKees Rocks and West End in the Western side of the Pittsburgh area.

It looked a lot like the pic I posted below.

[Tim R.]

Originally Posted by NowhereMan 1966

Yeah, we did, I know some areas in Pittsburgh that had it until the 1990's. I remember driving my grandmother at the time and she said that she "remembers those old streetlights from the time when she was a little girl." (she was born in 1912) IIRC, I remember seeing some of them in the older Robinson/Kennedy Township areas, McKees Rocks and West End in the Western side of the Pittsburgh area.

It looked a lot like the pic I posted below.

Pasadena, CA and some parts of Detroit still have this kind of lighting today. IIRC it’s series-string lighting.

[NowhereMan 1966]

Originally Posted by Tim R.

Pasadena, CA and some parts of Detroit still have this kind of lighting today. IIRC it’s series-string lighting.

I also saw a similar streetlamp on a bridge in Steubenville, Ohio although it looks more updated.

[MIPS]

This thread is quite old now but I'm bumping it purely to enlighten Telecolor.
Here is a 1963 catalog from General Electric listing the specifications on their then modern street lighting, including fluorescent.

https://www.scribd.com/document/3316...g-Catalog-1963

Scribd link, sorry. You should be able to see the entire thing at least once before it nags you to register.

Note that the most powerful lamp they list is the Form 606. It's an 8 foot long 100lb+ monster that takes SIX 230w Very High Output tubes and ran so hot it came standard with active cooling. Power consumption is somewhere around 1200W and provides roughly 65000 lumens of light output.


http://www.galleryoflights.org/mb/gallery/displayimage.php?pos=-10671

General Electric was a very normal supplier in North America, so a lot of the products in that catalog will be recognized by a few people here