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RIDOT 4th of July Pic
Here's a pic RIDOT posted as a 4th of July pic. Why they included a worker installing a M-400 FCO on a tall davit, I don't know. But hey, makes for a good pic! Notice how there is a green wire coming out of the davit inside the M-400. I guess RIDOT grounds the fixture directly instead of grounding the pole at the handhole... I see a red and a white supply lead. What voltage would that be? 277V? I know for sure they're not 120V. 208 and 240 are phase-to-phase so there wouldn't be white. So I guess 277V? It's not 480V.
Keywords: American_Streetlights

RIDOT 4th of July Pic

Here's a pic RIDOT posted as a 4th of July pic. Why they included a worker installing a M-400 FCO on a tall davit, I don't know. But hey, makes for a good pic! Notice how there is a green wire coming out of the davit inside the M-400. I guess RIDOT grounds the fixture directly instead of grounding the pole at the handhole... I see a red and a white supply lead. What voltage would that be? 277V? I know for sure they're not 120V. 208 and 240 are phase-to-phase so there wouldn't be white. So I guess 277V? It's not 480V.

woah!.PNG lightpoleexit15i95gone.jpg RIDOTstreetlightinstallation.jpg Providenceviaductin1964.jpg Kennedyridingdownelmwoodave1960.jpg
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Filename:RIDOTstreetlightinstallation.jpg
Album name:Mike / Outdoor Lighting
Keywords:American_Streetlights
Filesize:87 KiB
Date added:Oct 03, 2014
Dimensions:720 x 720 pixels
Displayed:136 times
URL:http://www.galleryoflights.org/mb/gallery/displayimage.php?pid=18495
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Comment 1 to 5 of 5
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Mercuryvapor123   [Oct 03, 2014 at 08:34 PM]
Not 277, 277 would be either brown, orange or yellow with a grey neutral. It has to be a 120v fixture 120 is black, red or blue with a white neutral. 480 would be all three brown, orange and yellow with a grey neutral. 240 volt can include a neutral as well.
streetlight98   [Oct 03, 2014 at 08:49 PM]
Hmm that's odd. I wonder why they'd do that. isn't a higher voltage better since more lights can be controlled by the same contactor relay? It makes sense that the hot is red because it is relay-controlled. I wonder if some older lighting installations are a higher voltage? RIDOT uses all multivolt photocells on their PC-controlled lights and back in the day, I think they had used red PCs on some of them (prior to the HPS days) which wouldn't work on 120V. I figured they'd stick with the same voltage. I guess they're 120V then! A question I've always wanted to know the answer too. Smile
NiMo   [Oct 08, 2014 at 03:42 AM]
Not necessarily. Oftentimes when you have parallel 120V circuits, you have two hots (black AND red) common neutral AND ground. That's how I wired my workshop electric.
streetlight98   [Oct 08, 2014 at 10:25 AM]
That's how the 240V mercs were wired from the mid-60s to the late 80s by NECo. When they put up the HPS in the 90s on wood poles they just snipped one of the hots at the pole, pulled it up through the mast arm, and then wired the new HPS lights for 120V. They used three wires for 240V because the 240V lights had 120V PC sockets.

So do you mean that these lights might have alternating hots? (like Hot A goes to light one, Hot B goes to light two, Hot A goes to light three, etc?) The lights would still be 120V though. The pole in the picture above is controlled by a relay, so the hot could be red to signify that it's a controlled load.
vintagelites   [Oct 13, 2014 at 06:20 AM]
Red and white =120VAC

Comment 1 to 5 of 5
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