Scottish and Southern having been carrying out a program of LV pole replacement in South Wiltshire over the last few months.
2 poles in my village have been replaced, and they also both had pole mounted Beta 5s on them. One had a partially holed bowl and evidence of water ingress - I suspect this was actually from around the NEMA socket gasket as the bowl was rust marked, implying water damaging the gear tray, where as a bowl hole should just let water run out.
During pole replacement SSE were somewhat clumsy. During the removal of the lanterns onto the new poles they smashed both ends of the bowl even further, and the clip and also broke the bowl clip on the other lantern. Both bowls ended up being secured with tie wraps.
However the Beta 5 with signs of water ingress then failed to operate. Reporting the fault online, I was expecting the non operating lantern to be replaced with a SON Arc, which still seems to be the choice for casual replacements. Although LED lanterns are used for some new installations, that light source is not the defacto replacement.
I was surprised that only 48 hours after reporting the fault, Ringways had the lantern back in operation, with a replacement bowl, rather than a new lantern. The bowl is secured with tape, which seems to indicate the same canopy. The old bowl was too rust marked to see the gear tray, where as now the replacement bowl is in place, the gear tray looks "reasonable", so perhaps that was swapped as well.
The previous contractors, Balfour Beatty had also been noted for swapping bowls on Beta 5s and having spares, but perhaps a more measured approach to avoid unnecessary replacements is in place, probably driven by tight budgets.
Whatever the reason, 1 more SOX lantern lives a bit longer
- unless it still fills up with water ... 