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Fixed yet again
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Here is the ole OV-25 I fixed about a year and a half ago. Came in early this morning and noticed it was out again. I was figuring that was it with this fixture since it only probably made it a year since it was last serviced. I had one last 400 watt merc lamp left on the truck and went up and checked to make sure the fixture still had power. Good thing power was still at the pole, I then changed out the lamp and photocell and the fixture fired right up. Hopefully it will keep going since this is the last merc light in this station and we no longer have any merc lamps left. If it goes again, it will be swaped out to HPS.
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I've actually noticed a few instances where NGrid changed a lamp in a HPS light and kept the old PC in place. Must be just one lineman or something. Also, NGrid has been hard at work the past week or so fixing the freeway lights at an interchange near my house. It's the last major interchange around here with NGrid-owned lighting. The rest of the NGrid lights have been ripped out and replaced with RIDOT-owned relay-controlled lights with meters. These NGrid lights have PCs and are unmetered just like wood pole lights. They're all 250W HPS drop lens M-250R2s. Anyway, NGrid has been nothing short of a joke when it comes to maintaining the freeway lighting they own (which is partly why RIDOT has been replacing the NGrid-owned lights, also with the fact that RIDOT wants to save money buy shutting the lights off part way though the night via the relay timer box). So anyway, I think they've left these lights alone since they're eventually planning to reconfigure the interchange so they don't want to waste money putting up a new lighting system.
Finally, after literally years of tormenting the state DOT and NGrid, I've gotten them to fix these lights lol. They've been working sun up to sun down on these lights every Wednesday through Friday this week and last week (why only those days, I don't know lol). Apparently they've given up on replacing lamps and PCs because they've just been installing new fixtures and fishing new wires through the conduit instead lol. Most of the issues were wiring issues but they're installing new fixtures too (keeping the old poles and pole foundations though). I can't wait to see it at night. FINALLY the interchange will be lit! They've replaced too knocked-down poles that I am aware of, but there's still around a dozen or so missing poles. They won't replace them because they've been gone so long that the anchor bolts for the pole are too rusted and they're too lazy/cheap to put in a new foundation for a new pole.
Eventually, RIDOT plans to totally eliminate any remaining NGrid-owned freeway lighting systems. I'm going to miss the awesome Narragansett Electric 10ft truss and 6ft tapered elliptical poles with the drop lens M-250R2s but the RIDOT systems are much better maintained (but they're boring davit poles, now with LEDs instead of the HPS M-400 FCOs that they've been using).
Oh were still using Sun Techs. We got a bunch of these intermatics in ironically because we went through so many sun techs we had to go to an electric supply house and buy some controls to get us through until the next shipment of controls come in LOL.
I hear you about the old classics. MDOT is changing all the highway lighting out here to LED. A lot of the OV-15's have been all changed out to the AEL autobahn fixtures. sad thing is the state isn't checking the wiring because half of them don't work LOL. It's almost a waist!
@Solanaceae- Unfortunately it's not that easy to get old equipment anymore. The new company is just way to strict on getting stuff.
The freeway lights that were installed by the former utility BVE never have wiring problems. Lamps and photocells is all they ever need. Yet the NECo ones frequently have wiring issues. NGrid will install brand new lights and get them all going and a month later the whole string is out again. Of course, half the freeway lights they've fixed at this interchange the past week are dayburning.
Before I became connected to the rest of the lighting world and actually got to know anything about it, I had no idea on manufacturers, models, lamp types, etc. I used to think that the clear bulbs were orange and the white coating on some lamps made the orange lamp white. and I used to think the NEMA tag's number was 1/100th of the wattage instead of 1/10th (meaning a "5" meant 500W instead of 50) because the street lights were so much brighter than regular house lamps. This is back in elementary school. I also knew the "knob" on top of the light had something to do with turning it on and off, but I thought it was some sort of timer that the electric company came around and adjusted. I guess looking back I was actually pretty observant on some things and actually not 100% wrong about them (like the sticker on the door actually did stand for the wattage, but not in the way I thought and how the knob on the light did control when it turned on but not in the way I though). Not bad for knowing absolutely nothing about lighting but comical to an older me.
When I was really little I thought there were tunnels under all the streets and I thought there was a pull-chain in the tunnel under each street light and workers underground would pull the pull chain for each light to turn them on.