GE Form 45L "Iron Head" low voltage radial wave street light
GE's 110-120 volt model. Note added: "Low voltage" in this instance refers to 100v "line voltage" as compared with kilovolt series circuits - in the context of the period when these lights were manufactured.
600 and up are the high voltage! You won't see any "DANGER HIGH VOLTAGE" signs being required to be posted unless its 600 or higher.....although there may some exceptions...
According to the Canadian Electrical Code, any voltage under and including 750V is considered low voltage. From above 750V until 50kV if I remember is mid voltage, and anything over 50kV is high voltage.
True. "Low voltage" is relevant to the period of the light. Maybe I'll clarify the explanation for folks viewing the images who are thinking in terms of modern "low voltage" such as landscape lighting and not 120 versus kilovolts.
How many volts do the big power lines have? (The ones that go long distances and are tall, mostly tall metal grids or maybe just one big metal pole like they do in Denver.)
33kV, 66kV, 132kV and 400kV are common voltages here, though most local distribution is at either 11kV or 33kV in underground cabling. If it is a single cable then it is mostly 600kV DC or 1000kV DC with earth return.
In the US most high voltage distribution (the high voltage or high tension lines) would be 12 kV. There is still some 8 kV running from the old days because it's too expensive to change everything out but 8 kV is really dangerous. 12 kV will usually open a breaker or fuse when a line drops and hits the ground. 8 kV usually doesn't and people get killed when they touch or try to move a downed line. 8 kV is scary to go out on when a line is downed in a storm unless you can actually see that a breaker has opened.
12 kV doesn't surprise you when it kills you. Generally 8 kV is older stuff. The insulators are smaller and the conductors were typically insulated. I used to hate being up in the bucket around 8 kV pushing into trees while working on signals when the trees hadn't been pruned and the branch tips were literally within inches of the 8 kV lines. After 50 or so years the insulation on those conductors was nearly gone. A small deviation here but I ran across one of my old coworkers yesterday in CA who had saved for me the first traffic signal I had ever installed which, ironically, was cabled through those very trees that were nearly touching the 8 kB and had my full attention. It had been stored in a bulding that still has those Holophane fixtures like Prawnie just posted. How is that for coincidence?
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And 120v is considered low back when the old series systems ran on a few kV.
Here's One its hard to read though...