Here is one of those 20 year maintence free Leoteks near my house. This fixture lasted just over 2 years. I have seen a few of them also half lit leaving me to believe that the one of the drivers failed. I'll report it monday and see if it gets replaced.
20 years my "behind"... I'd laugh if they replace this with a HPS. If the LEDs were covered by a federal grant, that could be the case if the city, municipality, utility, or whoever the owning entity is if they don't want to spend the money on new LEDs. I've seen some places with LEDs spot-replace a bad LED with a PSMH fixture (commercial fixtures, I've seen a wallpack and a canopy light get replaced). The PSMH replacement was way brighter too. Seems like the PSMH spot-replacement was of the same wattage as the fixtures the LEDs replaced. The PSMH canopy fixture I saw replaced an LED canopy that had replaced a HPS canopy at a bank but the PSMH wallpack that replaced the other failed LED appears to be an exact match of the old fixtures. Perhaps they had always had a spare PSMH in the stock room in case they needed it and kept it. The wallpack appears about 1-1/2 times brighter than the surrounding LEDs but the canopy light at the bank actually looks about as bright as the LEDs. The LEDs are slightly bluer though while the PSMH is a little yellower. The canopy LEDs and PSMHs are the same style fixture (just your generic brown boxy canopy fixture with a typical square prismatic dish for a lens). the PSMH wallpack at the other place doesn't match the surrounding LEDs though. The LEDs are FCO and have heat sinks while the PSMH is a run-of-the-mill horizontal rectangle with a glass lens facing the front and bottom.
HG&E only has LEDS on there website now so this more than likely will be replaced with the same fixture. The only thing HPS they mention is PAL floodlighting. I reported it out but it was still out as of this morning.
Ah I see. Odd that they don't even offer HPS anymore. LED is the next big thing but by no means is HPS obsolete yet, since it's in use practically everywhere still.
I've noticed NGrid is taking forever to fix lights I report here too and typically just fix them without sending me an email notification. I've also noticed that they've been sticking Lexalite/AEL 115 refractors in just about every light they fix even if the existing lens is fine. I'm seeing a lot more Lexalite/AEL refractors in M-250R2s now. They don't look bad, but they look odd. A few years ago they were using all Formed Plastics lenses, which look good in any GE fixture and look OK in 113s and older mercs. then they were just using random lenses, probably from removed lights. I saw Cooper OVZ plastic lenses, 113 lenses, M-250R2 lenses (both squared plastic and glass) and others. Now they use Lexalite/AEL refractors for all small lights, even 250W!
I noticed some of the new Coopers that NGrid has been installing don't have the new glass lens, they have the older style. Makes me wonder if Cooper is using both, like how GE flip-flopped between the shallow and deep glasses for their M-250 fixtures from the 60s through the early 90s before they introduced a new glass lens as the sole glass refractor for the M-250R2 and M-250A2.
Here, NGrid made a public statement saying they don't plan to offer anything besides HPS in the near future but they said that they encourage municipalities to purchase the lights currently owned and maintained by NGrid and then install their own LEDs in place of the existing leased lights. Basically they're trying to dump the cost of LEDs on the municipalites. Works for me because I don't want to say goodbye to cobraheads. RIDOT has started using LEDs (or at least testing them) so I guess they're not going to continue using HPS. Not a huge loss since they use FCO cobraheads anyway but I'd still rather see FCO cobraheads over those waffle irons lol.
Even the LED ones are junk? Gee... It's a shame. A few years back, Fisher Pierce was great, now not so much... I haven't really noticed a ton of dayburners recently though. Do they just seem to be duds out the box or do they actually work at first and then fail shortly after? There's a light near me (50W HPS M-250R2) with a newer blackish Fisher Pierce/Sun-Tech photocell and it turns on late like the others but it shuts off VERY late in the morning. The sun has to practically be in the sky before the PC shuts the light off. The lamp recently started cycling (earlier this month) so I reported it and they fixed it, but kept the old PC in so the light still runs all morning. I've noticed sometime they keep the old PC (which I love since aside from the new FP/Sun-Techs, PCs generally can outlive multiple lamp changes. If they always kept the PCs when relamping I bet there would be a LOT more older PCs left in service. Eastern Utilities Associates used to leave the PCs when changing the lamp. But NGrid doesn't seem to have a specific set of instructions. I guess "Just do whatever you need to get the street lit again". Sometimes the whole light is replaced, sometimes the refractor is changed for no reason, sometimes just the lamp and PC are changed, sometimes just the lamp. You just never know with NGrid lol.
But hey, look at the bright side (zing!). It now has an astonishingly low power consumption of 0W! Potential savings of hundreds of dollars are possible if you leave the thing up there! xD
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I've noticed NGrid is taking forever to fix lights I report here too and typically just fix them without sending me an email notification. I've also noticed that they've been sticking Lexalite/AEL 115 refractors in just about every light they fix even if the existing lens is fine. I'm seeing a lot more Lexalite/AEL refractors in M-250R2s now. They don't look bad, but they look odd. A few years ago they were using all Formed Plastics lenses, which look good in any GE fixture and look OK in 113s and older mercs. then they were just using random lenses, probably from removed lights. I saw Cooper OVZ plastic lenses, 113 lenses, M-250R2 lenses (both squared plastic and glass) and others. Now they use Lexalite/AEL refractors for all small lights, even 250W!
I noticed some of the new Coopers that NGrid has been installing don't have the new glass lens, they have the older style. Makes me wonder if Cooper is using both, like how GE flip-flopped between the shallow and deep glasses for their M-250 fixtures from the 60s through the early 90s before they introduced a new glass lens as the sole glass refractor for the M-250R2 and M-250A2.
Here, NGrid made a public statement saying they don't plan to offer anything besides HPS in the near future but they said that they encourage municipalities to purchase the lights currently owned and maintained by NGrid and then install their own LEDs in place of the existing leased lights. Basically they're trying to dump the cost of LEDs on the municipalites. Works for me because I don't want to say goodbye to cobraheads. RIDOT has started using LEDs (or at least testing them) so I guess they're not going to continue using HPS. Not a huge loss since they use FCO cobraheads anyway but I'd still rather see FCO cobraheads over those waffle irons lol.