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Westinghouse OV-12's 175 watt mercury vapor street lights in Natrona, PA
Sadly, these are all scheduled to be replaced with LED street lights soon.
Keywords: American_Streetlights

Westinghouse OV-12's 175 watt mercury vapor street lights in Natrona, PA

Sadly, these are all scheduled to be replaced with LED street lights soon.

7_24_2016_001.JPG harrison_township_street_lights_6.jpg westinghouse_ov-25_400_watt_mercury_vapor.jpg general_electric_m-1000.jpg westinghouse_ov-15~3.jpg
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Filename:harrison_township_street_lights_6.jpg
Album name:chapman84 / West Penn Power street lights (removed from service)
Keywords:American_Streetlights
Filesize:404 KiB
Date added:Feb 11, 2017
Dimensions:2304 x 1728 pixels
Displayed:171 times
URL:http://www.galleryoflights.org/mb/gallery/displayimage.php?pid=21472
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Comment 1 to 9 of 9
Page: 1

rlshieldjr   [Feb 12, 2017 at 01:24 AM]
I like the looks of this with all the power lines and poles
Silverliner14B   [Feb 12, 2017 at 04:21 AM]
Can you save any of these classics?
chapman84   [Feb 12, 2017 at 11:02 AM]
I don't know. I'll have to contact West Penn Power and ask them when these are coming down and if I could acquire them.
chapman84   [Mar 13, 2017 at 11:33 PM]
UPDATE: These are gone.
streetlight98   [Mar 14, 2017 at 01:14 AM]
Crying or Very sad
ZarlogH46   [Mar 14, 2017 at 01:51 AM]
The HPS virus that took off in the 80's wiped out several mercury vapor installations. There were some survivors, as seen here. Now LEDisease is going to finish what HPS started. Sad I really hate LEDs now, I used to not hate them that much but I would probably outlaw them if I could. Rolling Eyes
chapman84   [Mar 14, 2017 at 02:31 AM]
And now 175 watt mercury vapor Westinghouse OV-12's are even more rare. I thought I hated high pressure sodium street lights, but I really hate LED street lights.
streetlight98   [Mar 14, 2017 at 02:41 AM]
I like LEDs for their whiter light but I will miss the old fixtures that I've seen every day of my life. I'm also not a fan of the new LED designs. I like cobraheads much better. But I despise the waste of good fixtures more than I do the new fixtures themselves.

Around here, HPS installations before ~1990 were few. They installed limited numbers of 70, 100, 250, and 400W HPS fixtures throughout the 80s. NEES used mainly 100W HPS M-250R1s and 250W HPS M-400 split doors in the 80s but they also used 70 and 100W HPS M-250A2 FCOs, 400W HPS M-400 split doors, 250 and rarely 400W AE/ITT 25s, 70 and 100W HPS AE/ITT 13s, and I've seen one 100W HPS M-250A. They also used 70 and 100W HPS M-250R2 FCOs in the second half of the 80s.

But the big HPS conversion did not start until around 1989/1990. My 50W HPS Cooper OVC and 50W HPS AE 113 are both from 1990 and represent the first NEES fixtures that were used in the major HPS conversion. The Coopers were short lived in NEES's system. They literally only used them for like a year or two from what I can tell. The OVC was used in 50W and the OVS was used for 250W. Never seen any 100W OVCs. Those Coopers were rare since the largest numbers of HPS lights here were installed in 1993 and 1994. In that time they were mostly using GE M-250R2s for 50, 100, and 250W HPS though few AE 113s were installed in 50W and 100W HPS until around 1994-ish I think.

GE offered a lot more features in their fixtures in the 90s that Cooper and American Electric did not, such as tool-free photocell socket orientation, quick 2-bolt slipfitter instead of 4-bolt fitter than the OVC and 113 used, easy to adjust socket position (AE and Cooper required removal of the reflector), and plug-in ignitor instead of hardwired. Granted, NON of that really matters (except the 2-bolt fitter) since the photocell sockets are never correctly faced North (it isn't needed anymore with silicon eye PCs anyway), the socket position is never changed in the field, and the ignitors are never replaced around here.

However, all those bells and whistles probably made the GE lights look better on paper, which is all that counts since the guy who makes the decision on what lights to get probably doesn't have a clue what actually goes on in the field. The price probably played a role too. GE gives pretty good discounts to massive orders and a large utility like National Grid orders lights in MEGA quantities every few years.

It wasn't until the 2000s that Cooper and AEL started offering plug-in ignitors and made 2-bolt fitters standard (though Cooper did make all their new 90s fixtures 2-bolt such as the OVF/OVY, OVX, OVZ, and the circa-2000 OVH). I don't think American Electric offered any 2-bolt fitter until they were acquired by Acuity Brands in 2003, when they ditched the 113 for the 115, which is just a glorified 113 with the 2-bolt fitter, option of plug-in ignitor, tool-free PC socket, and minor changes to the door and upper housing. Also the 115 uses a hollow door latch while the older AE's used a solid cast aluminum latch. The 113 and 115 doors are interchangeable AFAIK, but I don't have a 115 to verify.

Cooper is the only one of the big three to still not even offer a tool-free PC socket as an option (GE and AEL only offer tool-free on their cobraheads) but again, it's a moot point since the PC sockets don't need to be adjusted with the new PCs. In fact, many new LED fixtures don't even have adjustable PC sockets! The PC sockets are just screwed directly into the casting with no way to adjust! Bummer for when the PC socket's factory position is toward artificial light! Granted you could totally remove the two PC socket screws and rotate the PC socket 180 degrees and screw it back down but that's a PITA. Try holding two little screws with lineman's gloves on! lol

Blackstone Valley Electric here did something pretty interesting when they had a flood light and street light on the same pole. When the flood light was installed over the street light, they'd install a shorting cap on the street light and connect the flood lights photocell socket so that it would control the street light as well. That way the flood light wouldn't turn off the street light. Unfortunately when NGrid replaces those street lights, the new lights get PCs and stay off at night. Rolling Eyes Check one out here! The M-400A2 has a GE shorting cap on it because the flood is facing right at it. It was a pretty common practice of BVE and works great but becomes a problem when the flood light is to be removed since it required an overhaul of the wiring.
chapman84   [Apr 23, 2017 at 01:42 AM]
All of the HID street lights in Harrison Township, PA are gone except for 3 1000 watt mercury vapor street lights. Those are the only ones left.

Comment 1 to 9 of 9
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