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PostPosted: Thu Jul 30, 2015 11:49 pm 
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Phosco152 wrote:
Several of us on Ukastle "knew" this was the case but a new study says Less lighting has no impact on crime or collisions.


In a similar vein, it could be argued that "more lighting has no impact on crime or collisions", however it is probably best not to!

That said, the above news is all the more interesting when you consider how up to quite recent times the doctrine was always "More light = less crime". In fairness, much of the country's lighting stock had been starved of investment for decades, therefore the move to generate a groundswell of interest in streetlighting improvement was seen as a just cause. It would also be a profitable enterprise for those selected to supply the new equipment.

It is not that different today, the only change nowadays is that it is LEDs that are seeing off SOX. Back in the 90s, it was high pressure sodium doing the dirty work!

Does anyone remember such publicity drives undertaken by the main manufacturers and the British Parliamentary lighting Group? One such example was Edmonton Green in North London. A small sample of the area's rundown streetlighting (ten lanterns) was selected for localised improvement. Deemed to be a big success, the results were subsequently duplicated across the country. Dull, unfriendly SOX and cold mercury lamps were seen as the root cause of the urban decay prevalent at the time. High pressure sodium with its clean, golden white light would cut through the darkness and bring us salvation, helped along with a revised BS5489 of course.

A particularly sobering thought is how the Edmonton relighting scheme which was previously lit by 35W SOX and 80W MBF, was improved by retrofitting SON onto the existing columns. In the days before carbon footprints and other "guilty pleasures", a closer look at the data indicates that the 35W SOX was replaced with Beta 79s burning 100W SON-Ts. The old MBF post tops were replaced with Gamma 6s, however these too utilised 100W SON-Ts. I would have expected 70W lamps to have been used at this height. Whilst the results would have certainly produced a huge (and welcome) increase in the light levels and colour rendition, I did wonder back then, if the use of such powerful lamps on relatively low mounting heights (5m) was chosen to provide maximum impact for the scheme's promoters or was it the beginning of a grand recipe to be repeated elsewhere.

Looking at how the streetscene has changed over the years (or beaten into a luminous pulp), it seems amazing how one small scheme in North London may have been the catalyst to the "binge" which only now seems to be the subject of a starvation diet.

Having become accustomed to the lights being on "full whack" for many years, we are now being increasingly told we can no longer afford to keep the lights burning (both financially and environmentally). In order to wean our highways off their expensive habit, dimmable LEDs are now providing an alternative Lux "fix" but this is at a high cost, both in terms of their initial outlay and the disposal of all the redundant assets which the LEDs displaced.


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Last edited by GreatNorburyStDepot on Sat Aug 01, 2015 10:38 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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PostPosted: Sat Aug 01, 2015 2:33 pm 
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Thanks very much for those scans - most interesting!

I live in the same borough as Edmonton Green and have always wondered when Enfield started using Beta 79s and Gamma 6s (and indeed Alpha 8s for main roads) - any idea as to when this article dates back to? It can't be any later than 1992 due to the reference to Middlesex polytechnic.


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PostPosted: Sat Aug 01, 2015 10:52 pm 
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Having had a close look at this publication used in these scans, there are some clues which might give an indication as to when it was published. This scan shows the then current "Thorn Lighting" logo, which I presume would have superseded the earlier Thorn EMI version. The dialing code is still 01, plus their telex service was still in common use.
The publication ref is 67999 which may be quite meaningless.
It would be interesting to know if the "free loan" video is still in existence.

The fact that the local offices of Thorn Lighting were used, suggests that perhaps similar schemes were promoted in cooperation with Thorn's other offices such as Manchester etc and the respective local authorities.


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"I can't think what you want to go to London for, you won't find any better lampposts there..."
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PostPosted: Mon Oct 12, 2015 7:12 pm 
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Could someone  with more know how than me explain how, on the Phillips site where I'm looking at the power consumption of the Luma, it says between 68w to 446w depending on configuration?

I'm slightly confused by "it can give good power saving if necessary."


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PostPosted: Tue Oct 13, 2015 8:30 am 
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It's down to amount of LED chips in it, driver rating and dim setting...


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PostPosted: Wed Oct 14, 2015 3:46 pm 
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nick217 wrote:
It's down to amount of LED chips in it, driver rating and dim setting...


It still seems like a huge variation between the one boasted about and what it can become if the amount of chips etc are factored in, unless that's just me.


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PostPosted: Wed Oct 14, 2015 4:44 pm 
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There is a big variation between the stated wattages for the Luma 3 (and other Lumas in the range), but there is a big variation in the light output too. Think of it a bit like an SGS203. One lantern, but 50W SON at one end of the scale and 250W SON at the other end of the scale. Rather than different wattages of lamp though, there are different numbers of LEDs available, and furthermore they can be specified such that they don't operate at maximum current.


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PostPosted: Fri Oct 23, 2015 8:12 am 
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One thing to note also is that traditional HID luminaires could have their optics adjusted so that the beam could be shaped to adapt to the road or footpath. While this gave more control of the lighting, it was never entirely accurate and there was always some amount of spill. I often found that installers would just plonk a new lantern on a column with no adjustment of the optic; this was especially true of retrofits to existing columns.

However, the LED lanterns generally aren't adjustable so they have to be preset by the manufacturer to shape the beam in a certain way depending on what the end-user specifies. In my mind this is better because it means the user has to work out exactly what they need to illuminate. For example, in Sheffield the Luma Minis used to illuminate footpaths have been specified with very few LEDs, however, because they have a very narrow optic installed, there is virtually no light spill and the intensity of the light reaching the footpath is concentrated in the area that it's needed; it isn't substantially dimmer than the surrounding roads either.


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PostPosted: Sat Oct 31, 2015 1:57 am 
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Alex wrote:
Thanks very much for those scans - most interesting!

I live in the same borough as Edmonton Green and have always wondered when Enfield started using Beta 79s and Gamma 6s (and indeed Alpha 8s for main roads) - any idea as to when this article dates back to? It can't be any later than 1992 due to the reference to Middlesex polytechnic.


It can be further pinpointed to sometime up to 6th May 1990 when the 01 London area code (as shown on the leaflet) was changed.


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PostPosted: Sun Sep 29, 2019 4:26 pm 
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On the topic of the most energy efficient ways of lighting a street, I was wondering which of the following LEDs are the most energy efficient to light up a street?

WRTL Stela

Holophane VMAX

Urbis Axia 2



I'm asking because where I live, prior to two years ago and after 2013 when North Lincolnshire Council started their LED street lighting project replacing all the lighting with Urbis Axia 2s, (which by the way is almost complete), some suburban roads such as cul-de-sacs were selected for a column replacement programme where their concrete columns/SOX lights combinations were replaced with steel columns and LED lighting. Initially, WRTL lighting was used for this programme but from mid-2016 to the point in 2017 when the council decided they would use Urbis Axia 2s for their large scale lighting replacement project, Holophane VMAXes were used for the cul-de-sac street lighting column replacements.

I'm told that the WRTLs/Holophane VMAXes haven't been and won't be replaced by Urbis Axia 2s if all of a road's lighting has either WRTLs or Holophane VMAXes but have been where only one or two casual replacements were installed.


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