Lamps > Modern

cities that still use mercury vapour lamps. also, do the new LEDs look like DX?

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mercuryvaporrocks:
The Dark Sky Mafia only cares about their own comfort rather than the common good, we're losing our lighting choices to these bullies who have no regard for the impact their stubborn stance has on other parties, even if it creates hardships for everyone else. I'm tired of hearing their nonsense.

bryantm3:
you guys are barking up the wrong tree— the DSA didn't want to ban mercury vapour. in fact, they like clear mercury vapour because it only has three spectrum lines to filter out, therefore it's ideal for astronomy. the reason mercury vapour was banned was because of the energy bill in 2005, since they are less efficient than other HID light sources— it doesn't specifically ban MV, but bans based on efficiency. i suspect the purpose behind that was that the lighting companies were losing money since MV fixtures were so cheap. all you have to have is one guy in congress and he can slip it in a 2,000 page bill and no one will know a thing until the bill is passed— the same thing happened recently when suddenly it became legal to serve people horse meat in canned goods again.

the DSA doesn't care about efficiency, they just want less light and workarounds for existing light. that's why they like LPS and clear MV lights the most— they have very few spectrum lines, meaning they only emit three specific colours that are very easy to filter out:





the reason for the FCO lights versus drop lenses is so it doesn't shine in other people's windows and whatnot. however, there's no reason you can't have a diffusing lens with a FCO light. hell, they've got FCO lights around atlanta from the 60s (a variant of the M400— they were converted to sodium vapour but the shape is still intact) that appear to have diffusing lenses.

the #1 thing is the brightness issue. back when we had MV lights, it was typical to have 100 watt MV lights on residential streets, and a maximum of 400 watt MV on the busiest freeways. in the name of efficiency, they switched to HPS, but they converted them directly based on wattage, so we saved no electricity at all, and now the streets are twice as bright. now people are used to the bright lights, and they're making them even brighter with LEDs. you know what one of the top results for "LED street lights" on google is?

this:


 
they use that as a marketing image! like that's the optimal, or advanced, or even good!

if you don't think that's overkill, i don't know what to say. a certain amount of light increases security and safety for pedestrians and drivers, but if you keep increasing the light, you get less and less return in terms of security and safety, but you have a ton of negative side effects. look at that picture— what a nuisance! if that was near my house i don't know what i'd do. there's no reason a street needs to be lit up much more than this:



you can see everything that's going on, but the light isn't invasive and you can still see the stars.

Mike:
i think the LED picture they had a longer exposer to allow more light so it appears brighter than it does in reality. however, i think you could remove every other pole and that road would still be lit above what's needed. that thing is as bright as a nascar race track!lol

 in my area, when the old 100W MV lights were installed many of the houses here today didn't exist so now the 100W HPS is needed. Personally i find 50W HPS too dim for street lighting. 70 or 100W HPS is better.

bryantm3:
here we have 250 watt HPS lights for residential areas and 400 watt or higher for commercial areas. it's nuts.

Mike:
In Providence we have 250W lights on residential roads but I'd hate to call them "residential". I mean, yeah there are houses but it's urban and definetly ghetto. The main roads in Providence were originally 400W MV, then 250W HPS but recently the 250W HPS lights have been getting upgraded to 400W HPS lights.

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