LED Streetlights

We just got new LED streetlights, they have 1 tiny oval 12mm x 30mm estimated looking yellow phosphor coated led under an acrylic looking lens with no diffuser.

These light up the roadway but unlike the high pressure sodium amber lights with the glass diffuser hanging down, these are recessed up in the fixture and only really light the roadway but leave yards and house fronts/sides dark.

Anti crime lights these are not, but laser beams look much better out my side window.

OLD HPS AMBER, There is one right over my head.


NEW LED ENERGY SAVERS, with federal kickback no doubt.
There is one right over my head behind me, literally 10 feet behind me on our pole that's at the top corner of our yard, just look how dark my yard is now, again I'm not complaining. Were saving energy. LMAO



From my front homeowner sidewalk, it's a big difference, my yard used to be lit up orange at night.



I have read that some cities have multi emitter lights that make horrible multiple shadows that move as you walk, but these cast sharp shadows of phone lines and branches only once as they have 1 led each.

Other people complain theirs are too bright, not ours, I like it darker myself, and I'm not worried about criminals breaking into my house, every 1st floor window and our doors are reinforced and alarmed and we are armed to the teeth, not to mention we have cameras all around the outside that are hard to miss.

I like that my beams look better without that pumpkin orange daylight all night, hell I hope these LED's dim on down over the next year, won't bother me a bit.

What do you have in your areas?

Around here, in Lincoln we still have old fashioned bulb lights(at least in my neighborhood). Around my place of work, most are LED and turn off when you drive underneath them. In France, where my dad is, the old streetlights that have been there for years have become LED lights about a year or so ago

-Alex

Same deal up here Red, there used to be entirely sodium vapour streetlights in my city. A few years ago these cool new hip white LED streetlights started popping up. I totally noticed the difference between the two, how the sodium lights just carelessly threw their nasty orange light all over the place creating tons of light pollution, and the LED ones directed their light at the street and only the street and sidewalks, nowhere else. I used to have a sodium light right beside my backyard lighting up the alleyway, but when they converted to LED my backyard became incredibly dark. However, you're right, these new lights are better for lasers. Often during the winter when the snow is on the ground and the cloud cover is low, a lot of the streetlight light gets reflected off the snow and on the clouds, making the nights incredible bright, this evening it had been overcast all day and tonight it might be nearly just as bright as it was during the day, because the cloud cover is low. Over the years, I noticed this artificial 'midnight sun' slowly change from a sodium orange to a mix of yellow and white

We have SOX and Led around my area

Hi red,
Hey be grateful where i live there's a light only at the road intersections. It's pitch black on the roads here, i live in town of hoarse farms and crops. If i have a light every mile i'm lucky

Rich

Where I am from 1am to 5am all lights are turned off , so its pitch black everywhere .

I was out once when they all went off , it was kinda creepy : /

ionlaser555 said:

Where I am from 1am to 5am all lights are turned off , so its pitch black everywhere .

I was out once when they all went off , it was kinda creepy : /

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That's right! I forgot about that!!

I miss the old orange low pressure sodium lamps - still lots of them back there?

Wow, LED street lights, in my small town I think we are lucky that we even have the low pressure sodium lights instead of the gas lamps they used to have lol.

I am deep in the forest on tribal land, it is really dark here there are no street lights, only people's outside lights and the lights in their homes. Even the moon light is blocked by the trees. The nearest area with street lights I think are still sodium lights. I expect everywhere will eventually convert to LED to save money.

Alan

diachi said:

That's right! I forgot about that!!

I miss the old orange low pressure sodium lamps - still lots of them back there?

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They are mostly SOX lamps round my area , but there is also SON and Led , but on most of the estates its SOX ...

Long Live SOX ! -

IMG_1121[1] by TwirlyWhirly555, on Flickr

Do these LED street Lights use the same optical sensor or are they on a timer? I've tried numerous times to turn off the street lights with my laser. I used to be able to do this all the time at my parent's house as a kid with a 5mw red. I've tried it with my Green 515nm 5mw and 5mw 638nm to no avail.

Yes they have a light sensor on top, but it seems to sense at a upward angle, a million candle power floodlight won't shut it off.

My camera is not that fancy, it has a zoom but these are the best pics I could get.

I saw some on the trailer behind a Georgia power truck the other day and the actual led is only about 12mm x 30mm oval with an acrylic lens cover. I think the guy said they were 64 watts in the neighborhoods and 100 watts on the feeder roads.

I wonder if they are 10,000 or 100,000 hour to half brightness and if they compensate any as they age, either way I like them better than those orange pumpkins.

64 or 100W doesn't seem like much for a street light but that is saving a lot of electricity. I wouldn't be surprised if one day they carry it a step further and have them tied into a system to monitor traffic and pedestrians and turn them on and off as needed.

Alan

Turning them on on demand could be a good solution for roads that get very little traffic.

Here in the netherlands they resorted to simply turning many lighs off on highways in the middle off the night (say from 10 pm to 5 am). This is actually quite a problem since the roads were designed with permanent lighting in mind.

Smaller roads are fitted with reflectors along the sides since there was no proper lighting on those in the past. Highways don't generally have those though, and you cannot use highbeams either as those annoy traffic coming the other way or even just in front of you.

Replacing the lights with LED could possibly help this situation a bit: run them at 20% power in the middle of the night so there is orientation lighting instead of totally dark roads as there are now.

No street lights for miles around here so it is dark as can be.

I hate street lights. They eff up my night vision something fierce. Even properly aimed low beams mess it up. Looking down and to the right at the white line doesn't help. My dash lights get dimmed as far as possible.

My neighborhood has sodium lamps. That yellowish light is so ugly. It seems like half the lights don't work properly. Yet I pay $3 a month for the stupid things. I'd shoot them out with my 50 BMG rifle if I could.