First off, thanks for serving. Second, how many watts do the replacement LED lights (the traffic ones) consume? Just wanna get an idea of what's being gain. Second, the AF is doing a pretty good job at embracing efficiency and RE. Kudos to them. Here in my city I know that some of the lights have been replaced with LEDs, but we still have a lot of the old style ones. I suppose as they die out they get replaced. Or do they do a whole intersection as soon as one bulb goes? Seems like that would make more sense. Traffic lights are one of the low hanging fruits that municipalities should be going after and I'm glad to hear the ROI is there, as nothing motivates better than that.
Thank you for your support! I am currently serving in South Korea and we have no traffic signals on this base. I am afraid I cannot remember the wattage of the kits we used at my last base. Certainly the lower wattage saves a modicum of electricity, but the real money-maker in retrofitting LEDs is the greatly reduced labor costs of changing those bulbs (incandescent 100-watt traffiic light bulbs are rated at 10,000 hours, and most LEDs are rated at something close to 100,000 hours). As far as when the lights get replaced, we usually waited until one of the bulbs failed and then changed all the lights on that side of the intersection (whatever could be reached without repositioning the bucket truck). The big saver will come with replacing old-fashioned streetlights with LEDs. Most of the high-pressure sodium streetlights you see on our roadways (the ones with the orange-colored light) are 250- or 400-watt units, and require a large, expensive, materials-dense current limiting transformer (also called a ballast) and a starter in addition to the bulb. All these parts are not cheap, and require an hour or so to replace when that becomes necessary. LEDs will have none of this associated equipment, and in addition to lasting much longer will be much quicker to repair (read: swap old for new). Again, a big savings in labor costs. I haven't put my own eyes on one of these streetlights yet, so I do not know what the retrofit kits cost or what the wattage savings will be. Unless the initial cost of the kits is eye-poppingly high, they will be better than typical HID streetlights in every measurable way.
I was in the service too (7 years in the CO Guard, so I wasn't active duty) so I have an idea of life. Anyways, thanks for the info, it's always interesting to learn about these sorts of things. I figured the big savings were labour related. I'd love to see those sodium lights go away. Sounds like it might happen sooner rather than later given the high costs of the current technology.
We have government, military, and industrial clients who are doing active trials on LED. The obvious choice is for applications that must 1. Last a long, long time (Labor savings, possible life safety issues too) 2. Save energy (Consume 1/3 to 1/6 the device replaced) 3. Better visibility, especially for airfields and control rooms The cost is still out of sight, compared to CFL. Currently, if you need to illuminate a large area, an Induction Lamp is a much better choice. Unlike HPS, they don't cause "light pollution" and will last 100,000 hours http://www.nam.lighting.philips.com/us/ecatalog/hid/pdf/p-5456e.pdf LED's are still pretty expensive. At work we tried some PAR replacements from LEDTronics, they work very well even at -40, but pricey. Very similar to this model PAR38 Spotlight LED Light Bulbs At my hobby farm, I have low pressure sodium lamps. They are VERY efficient, but give off a somewhat nauseating sickly yellow glow. The yard light is 55 watts, the light over the garage door is 18 watts.
:welcome: Welcome to PriusChat, MountainStone, and thanks for the post. You reminded me of something I read about the commonwealth of Kentucky swapping out EVERY incandescent traffic signal light bulb in the state for LEDs. A quick Google search came up with these two hits among others: Kentucky Finishes Statewide LED Traffic Signal Retrofit : LED Lighting : Lighting : Press Releases : GE Consumer & Industrial Press Room LEDs Magazine - Kentucky finishes statewide LED traffic signal retrofit
Was checking my email and came across this announcement of GE getting very close to mass producing OLED lighting GE demonstrates first roll-to-roll OLEDs - R & D If they can perfect OLED, at a decent entry price, it will replace CFL
It can look like anything you want, depends on the emitters. Cool white is the cheapest/easiest white right now, looks like the light from a cool-white fluorescent tube. There are units that use seperate red/green/blue emitters, you power them up and down seperately and can get pretty much any color you want. Example: NEW Chauvet LED PALET DMX Color Changer Wash Light - eBay (item 170200266426 end time Mar-15-08 17:34:06 PDT) LEDs household lighting is coming, but right now it's a specialty item.
I got three LED bulbs for my front porch/garage that run all night long (they're attached to light sensors which automatically turn them on and off). They're very dim, but that is fine for what they're used for, and at 3w, they make 17w cfl's look like the Hummer of the lightbulb world!
This is definitely where it is at! I almost purchased some LED lights that fit into a traditional light socket. I want to try it out, but I just cannot justify the cost. I suppose they will be cheap soon enough.
