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 Post subject: Re: Philips products
PostPosted: Wed Jan 28, 2015 7:55 pm 
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The Philips MA range (SRS201) was indeed one of the best SOX lanterns ever made, if not the best. It ticked all three boxes for appearance, performance and durability. I do have a feeling that the quality of these lanterns deteriorated in recent years as Philips seeked to cut costs.

Philips is not in a good way at the moment. Profits are tumbling, the lighting division is being split off from the more profitable consumer and healthcare division with a subsequent sell off very likely, and profit forecasts are not good. It's all very worrying for Europe's biggest street lighting manufacturer. I'm expecting products to be discontinued, production lines shut down, factories to be closed and quality to reduce.


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 Post subject: Re: Philips products
PostPosted: Thu Jan 29, 2015 12:25 am 
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NIGHTWATCH 50 wrote:
Philips`s MA is probably the best SOX lantern ever designed, I`m surprised they made the gear shoe version though, as a money saving exercise, its unusual that Philips didn`t realize early on that it was cheaper to fit the gear at the back of lantern, and cover it all with the same bowl in one go!


The Mk 1 MA probably was the best Group A GRP SOX lantern ever made - but the gear in bowl model was horrendous.

Why you should be surprised that they ever made the original gear enclosed model I cannot comprehend.,

When the MA lantern was introduced, the majority of sales were for the remote geared models.

The difference between that, and the gear enclosed version, was the increased length of the attractive aluminium end section necessitated by the space requirement for the gear.

Had the GE version been introduced with the gear in the bowl, its lack of aesthetics would have precluded it from achieving satisfactory sales.

Several years later, after capturing the market, they reduced their costs, (but not the price!), and stuck the gear in the bowl of of the MA50 to produce the MA90 GE, and in the bowl of the MA60 to produce the MA50 GE.

When the gear in bowl model was introduced we never bought any, and used the remote  geared model instead.


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 Post subject: Re: Philips products
PostPosted: Sun Feb 01, 2015 12:22 am 
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Even as an owner of a gear in head MA50, I can agree the "gear in shoe" versions were better looking. However, even as a lighting enthusiast myself, I think the suggestion that the gear in head versions are some sort of crime against humanity are a bit strong!

Also, from a purely technical perspective, it's never really bothered me that only part of the lantern appears to light. Sure, it's more apparent when warming up -

Image
(please excuse my messy living room!)

-but once fully lit the light bounces around the inside of the lantern enough to more or less disguise what's going on:

Image

moreover, you can see the MI26 also suffers the same affliction; around 1/3 of the lantern is "darker" because of the lamp length and the getter, etc. Something that isn't particularly uncommon across a range of SOX lanterns.

All in all a bit of a storm in a teacup re. MA50 design, if I may be so bold!


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 Post subject: Re: Philips products
PostPosted: Sun Feb 01, 2015 8:54 pm 
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Whilst perhaps slightly off topic, let us not forget that other manufacturers also "stretched" the usefulness of their 180W castings to enter the integral gear market. Eleco with its GR152 is another example which must have been designed not only to save money, but also to satisfy a perceived demand, just like the Philips contender.

The only issue I have with the 135W version is that the extra long length of the lantern makes it look ungainly, even when mounted at 10m. Add a few of these lanterns as "casual replacements" on a traditional concrete street scene and the aesthetics go out of the window.

It must however be borne in mind, that the general public (apart from Ukastle members) rarely look up at the streetlighting provision, therefore aesthetics (or lack of them) is unlikely to arouse opposition. Actually, it is even more unlikely these days to be noticed, as pretty much everyone is looking down at their smartphones!  :x

In this era of vanishing SOX, I'm sure we will mourn the loss of even these ungainly brutes. As a way of reducing tooling costs and yet still providing a product which is a doddle to install, I can see how integral geared lanterns have achieved good market penetration. The highways agency has certainly liked them in the past as we know.

Whilst the largest ratings often fail to impress, I personally think the Eleco GR102 semi-cutoff lantern from the 70s with the rear portion of its bowl opalised to hide the 90W gear, was a good looking piece of design. Until the PFI scheme swept them away, Manchester's highways department must have used hundreds of them - albeit as casual replacements for other Eleco and Phosware varieties!

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 Post subject: Re: Philips products
PostPosted: Tue Feb 03, 2015 9:21 pm 
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Glad to see this MA50 is settling into it's new home nicely!


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 Post subject: Re: Philips products
PostPosted: Tue Feb 03, 2015 10:07 pm 
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Some good points there, GreatNorburyStDepot and thank you trencheel303 for those photographs, which help put the size of an MA50 into perspective!


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 Post subject: Re: Philips products
PostPosted: Thu Feb 05, 2015 7:26 pm 
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trencheel303 wrote:
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I may be mistaken, but looking at your novel method of fooling the photocell, I presume this Philips product is now classified as a 135W "SOCKS" lantern! :lol:

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 Post subject: Re: Philips products
PostPosted: Fri Feb 06, 2015 9:40 pm 
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It took me a minute to suss out why the lantern kept going off, I'd "forgotten" about the cell. One could say the sock was a ..bright.. idea..!


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 Post subject: Re: Philips products
PostPosted: Thu Feb 12, 2015 9:51 pm 
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If the SRS201 was discontinued now there would be pretty much no option for the hundreds of thousands of units that are serviced in the world, but to replace them with non-matching light sources. Should there be some sort of protection or backup should this come to pass?

The last competitor it had was the Thorn Alpha 4, but even that only went up to 135W, and disappeared a few years ago.

Fortunately there are alternatives further down the wattage range. There's the Phosco P567A, Philips' Residiums (not on the site, but still manufactured), and the Philips Iris (SGS150-152). I wouldn't be surprised if several of the tube CFL lanterns, such as the Libras, could be modified for SOX as well.


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 Post subject: Re: Philips products
PostPosted: Thu Feb 12, 2015 11:39 pm 
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Don't forget the Tamlite Tamcourt and V-lux FLXas well. There's loads of them in Glasgow, notably as casual replacements for older stock that had perhaps failed. Glasgow to this day is still a heavily SOX city, even installing new in some places where necessary, but it seems to be an exception rather than the rule.

Do you think there are enough SRS201 installations that are considered actively maintained that Philips discontinuing the product will really hurt things? The impression I get is that almost all 180 and 135W SOX installations I've seen are in a state of "hanging on for dear life", in that the best case scenario is they'll get an occasional re-lamp and a cable tie to hold on the broken bowl clips (yes Alpha 4, I'm looking at you). The worst and most common scenario is they just get SON'd if anything more than the lamp goes. (And some councils, like the one here, don't even re-lamp SOX anymore!)

From what I've seen and the conclusions I've drawn, the sun is setting on SOX and a lot of installations are now in a "replace when dead" state - but as I'm not in the industry, it's just conjecture.


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