LED street lighting

Mr Bastable

Mr Bastable

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I watched a couple of blokes installing new heads to the street lights up and down our road yesterday. What a tremendous difference it has made, we used to have little islands of light and nothing in between. Now there is bright even lighting all the way up and down the road, it's like being a evening sports event!

I have read some councils are switching off lighting to save money so I was quite surprised by the new installations, anyone else seen these upgrades?
 
I must admit that yes I've seen them and no I don't like them. I hate the night time light pollution and can't stand them.
 
Our local lights are turned off at night. Not on the main roads but the first 500m are pretty dicey if you have to leave home to catch a train at 5am.
 
Got some replacements around here too, but they're still turned off over a portion of the night, which I like.
 
We had ours done about six months ago ,seem fine to me but I rarely Go out at night these days due to a increase in vampires and other mythical creatures ,also if using the car I have trouble lighting the candles in the headlights .
 
viv1969 said:
Got some replacements around here too, but they're still turned off over a portion of the night, which I like.
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(y) Folk that want street lights on all night should have head torches super-glued to their forehead.
 
My mums street has them, and for her and several of her similarly aged friends they are wonderful - she has fallen several times due to uneven paving slabs etc but now can see clearly. Not sure they need to be on all night for her tho, as she is rarely out after about 10.00pm.
 
We've had them fitted local to us recently and they're absolutely pathetic.
You'd get more light from a damp matchstick :mad:
 
The council's upgrading our streetlights at the moment, have to agree with the massive improvement the new LED bulbs give over the old sodium lights.
 
We had them installed about a year ago. Took down the old poles too, and put in new ones in different locations (presumably because the lights cover a greater range). Trouble is they put one on the opposite side of the road right across from our bedroom, and now until around midnight, we have something only slightly less bright that the sun burning itself into my retinas each night.

Hate the bloody thing.
 
Furtim said:
We had them installed about a year ago. Took down the old poles too, and put in new ones in different locations (presumably because the lights cover a greater range). Trouble is they put one on the opposite side of the road right across from our bedroom, and now until around midnight, we have something only slightly less bright that the sun burning itself into my retinas each night.

Hate the bloody thing.
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Air rifle....:D
 
They 'upgraded' here a couple of years ago. Immediately under the new LEDs my head gets burnt...walk towards the next one and it becomes too dark to see the very poorly maintained pavement/road before becoming blinding again. The old lamp-posts were 1934 concrete ones and looked quite reasonable. The new ones are made of tinfoil and in the recent windy weather they swayed about like dad at a disco.
If this was done to make the place look better or to reduce the light pollution I'd be more positive. It was purely down to the long-term saving on electrickery....and that, unfortunately has a longer payback time than the posts are likely to survive.
 
morfis said:
They 'upgraded' here a couple of years ago. Immediately under the new LEDs my head gets burnt...walk towards the next one and it becomes too dark to see the very poorly maintained pavement/road before becoming blinding again. The old lamp-posts were 1934 concrete ones and looked quite reasonable. The new ones are made of tinfoil and in the recent windy weather they swayed about like dad at a disco.
If this was done to make the place look better or to reduce the light pollution I'd be more positive. It was purely down to the long-term saving on electrickery....and that, unfortunately has a longer payback time than the posts are likely to survive.
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Fully agree with that. The contrast between lit and unlit is too harsh. For eyes to adjust it can be dangerous even. Further more I also find that they create more intense shadows whilst I appreciate that under certain conditions it appears that they light up more, I'd argue that they also hide more because of those shadows. And then there is the visibility in adverse weather conditions, warmer light is much better and provides much better visibility...
 
I much prefer the new LED street lights, but it's strange how the eye is deceived - they're less bright than the old style lamps but because the colour appears truer to the eye the perception is that they are as bright or brighter than the lights they've replaced.
 
dejongj said:
I must admit that yes I've seen them and no I don't like them. I hate the night time light pollution and can't stand them.
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they replaced the sodium lights in our street with led, and the amount of light pollution has decreased.
 
Mr Bastable said:
I watched a couple of blokes installing new heads to the street lights up and down our road yesterday. What a tremendous difference it has made, we used to have little islands of light and nothing in between. Now there is bright even lighting all the way up and down the road, it's like being a evening sports event!

I have read some councils are switching off lighting to save money so I was quite surprised by the new installations, anyone else seen these upgrades?
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Make sure they did not connect them up to your supply......they have done this in several other installs, as the power use is so low nobody notices! you will need to monitor your power usage over a period of time, best to sit and watch the wheel spin and count the spins before and after the lights switch on during a 24 hour cycle....make sure you wear a helmet on the cycle...good luck.
 
LASTOLITE said:
Make sure they did not connect them up to your supply......they have done this in several other installs, as the power use is so low nobody notices! you will need to monitor your power usage over a period of time, best to sit and watch the wheel spin and count the spins before and after the lights switch on during a 24 hour cycle....make sure you wear a helmet on the cycle...good luck.
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Surely they would need to get at a supply after the meter for them to "steal" power? Might I suggest lining the helmet with tin foil???
 
Ours were changed about 3 yrs ago & they do seem brighter somehow, but think it might be due to the colour as well as being more directional (down instead of up towards the moon & stars)

Interestingly, re light pollution, I mentioned these new lights to an astronomer & he said he hopes they don't install them near him. Can't remember exactly why, other than they'd have a negative effect on his astro photography.

Edit; He presently uses an IDAS filter for sodium lighting.
 
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Nod said:
Surely they would need to get at a supply after the meter for them to "steal" power? Might I suggest lining the helmet with tin foil???
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he he he
 
Our street lights go off around 10pm which is great for going out with the telescope. When they are on, I dislike the orange glow they emit so would welcome newer bulbs
 
Oooo, just noticed there is one of those posh new LED street lights installed on my street - right next to a still working original 1950's cast iron sodium lamp (the new lamp replaced the old one that got knocked down by a reversing recycling truck a few months ago).

I need to get a life, don't I?
 
Our estate has been completely 'upgraded' with LEDs, replacing the sodiums. In my opinion the LEDs leave a puddle of light underneath and around each pole, but I think that the bit between the poles is darker than before. Directional light rather than dispersed.

Coming home at night I most expect to see a woman smoking in an evening dress and a bloke in a fedora under the light.
 
Tulipone said:
Our estate has been completely 'upgraded' with LEDs, replacing the sodiums. In my opinion the LEDs leave a puddle of light underneath and around each pole, but I think that the bit between the poles is darker than before. Directional light rather than dispersed.

Coming home at night I most expect to see a woman smoking in an evening dress and a bloke in a fedora under the light.
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I wonder what those new lights will look like during a very misty evening, I bet it would look surreal photography-wise. I've not seen it for myself as there aren't that many LED street lights here at Folkestone yet.
 
Tulipone said:
Our estate has been completely 'upgraded' with LEDs, replacing the sodiums. In my opinion the LEDs leave a puddle of light underneath and around each pole, but I think that the bit between the poles is darker than before. Directional light rather than dispersed.

Coming home at night I most expect to see a woman smoking in an evening dress and a bloke in a fedora under the light.
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In our street they've installed much taller poles than the old ones so we don't get too big a dark area between lamp posts.
 
My job often includes night time photography in streets. The new white LED lights are great and saves a lot of hassle and you can see a lot clearer what has gone on. Many years ago used to shoot on film and would have a blue filter trying to correct the orange lighting.
 
Tulipone said:
Our estate has been completely 'upgraded' with LEDs, replacing the sodiums. In my opinion the LEDs leave a puddle of light underneath and around each pole, but I think that the bit between the poles is darker than before. Directional light rather than dispersed.
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It's because they've done it on the cheap. The LED heads should be placed higher than the old sodium heads, but almost every council just sticks them up on the old poles, they need to be on a pole almost twice as high for the correct dispersion. Until then it's puddles of light and dark...
 
Ian D J said:
I wonder what those new lights will look like during a very misty evening, I bet it would look surreal photography-wise. I've not seen it for myself as there aren't that many LED street lights here at Folkestone yet.
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Actually that thought occurred to me when I wrote that. I'm keeping an eye out for something that looks worthwhile taking a shot of.

The LEDs are on new posts and look a little higher than before - but not a lot. That said, Huntingdon never seems to do the right thing - the council far prefers doing the cheap thing.
 
We have had them recently installed in our area. I never liked the old yellow sodium lamps so love the new LED ones. In our area they are quite small arrays so give out less light than the old sodium lamps which I also prefer as its now darker where I live but a much more pleasing colour of light - more natural.
 
Dave1 said:
It's because they've done it on the cheap. The LED heads should be placed higher than the old sodium heads, but almost every council just sticks them up on the old poles, they need to be on a pole almost twice as high for the correct dispersion. Until then it's puddles of light and dark...
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I suspect that the councils are caught between a rock and a hard place. Yes, ideally the poles should be taller but I doubt that any council sees that as a priority when simply changing the heads will pay for itself in a few years while replacing perfectly serviceable poles will take a lot more work and money.
 
Nod said:
I suspect that the councils are caught between a rock and a hard place. Yes, ideally the poles should be taller but I doubt that any council sees that as a priority when simply changing the heads will pay for itself in a few years while replacing perfectly serviceable poles will take a lot more work and money.
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That's almost exactly what I was told (with the additional reason that the budget for the replacement had been hit by austerity cuts). They will supposedly order the correct pole lengths and when a pole requires replacement in the future they will replace with the proper length pole.
 
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They should fit the right LED units for the height of the post. With the correct angle of spread and brightness. There will be a choice of angles and specs.
 
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