The electrician who removed it from service cut off the quick disconnects to the ballast door instead of simply disconnecting it. I had to splice the connectors back on to get the fixture working again.
These were changed out to LED so they were under the assumption these were being scrapped. It's a pretty common thing when lights get replaced, gut and rip and get that new light up as quick as you can.
I've seen places that changed lights out to LEDs that actually dropped the old fixtures to the ground from the bucket! A local shopping center did that with the shoebox lights when they went to LED. I happened to be in the lot next door and saw the guy take the light off the pole, remove the glass lens and lamp, and heave the light over the side of the bucket into a wooden crate.
I guess that's so he could change both lights on the pole without having to come down (the LEDs are slim so he can go up in the bucket with both LEDs but no room for more than one HID so he just throws them down lol). It would certainly save time. I'm just glad they weren't cobraheads! Though I'm sure the same thing happens with cobraheads too. Probably more so in parking lots, where they tend to have less professional people do the work lol. Glad that wasn't the case here.
Sadly, it does happen with cobraheads too. I saw someone replacing some silverliners in a parking lot with LEDs, and I was going to go up and ask if I could have one or a few, when suddenly they just threw the old light down and it smashed all over the concrete. I left after that, I couldn't watch any more of that.
I actually saw a lineman throw a Westinghouse OV-25 from the boom of his truck when West Penn Power was removing the old poles from the east side of Freeport Rd in Harmar, PA to make room for the new Hulton Bridge. They replaced several 400 watt mercury vapor street lights with 200 watt high pressure sodium street lights across the street.
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I guess that's so he could change both lights on the pole without having to come down (the LEDs are slim so he can go up in the bucket with both LEDs but no room for more than one HID so he just throws them down lol). It would certainly save time. I'm just glad they weren't cobraheads! Though I'm sure the same thing happens with cobraheads too. Probably more so in parking lots, where they tend to have less professional people do the work lol. Glad that wasn't the case here.