Here's one of the few remaining 60s era sign lights left in Toronto. It uses incandescent lamps and it looks like it's in pretty bad shape. The original sockets have been disconnected and a new double socket installed.
Newer sign lights are usually one lamp and is cast aluminium instead of sheet metal.
Yeah, I think it was originally used with a enameled steel sign instead of a reflective sign. You can see how the crew drilled extra holes in the sign to mount it too.
Most I've seen are PC controlled but there was one (now burnt out) that ran 24/7. That one used to be controlled by the streetlight group relay but someone though it was a good idea to convert from relay to individual PC so they bypassed the relay. Now the wallpacks and sign lights also controlled by the relay dayburn.
hmm converting the relay to individual PCs seems like a step backwards IMO. Did they have to change out all the fixtures or did they have PC sockets or were remote sockets used? Here the opposite is happening. NGrid is converting strigs of RIDOT's lights on I-95 to relay. The older lights have shorting caps (and some even have PCs! It's company policy to replace photocell with photocell so the miss-outs of changing the PCs to shorting caps will always have photocells each time the fixtures get relamped). You can see which lights get replaced since when the starter goes in the fixture a new M-250R2 without a PC socket is installed. For new RIDOt installations, the M-400 FCOs all have PC sockets but spot replacements don't ever have PC receptacles which is odd. So there's always a mix of shorting caps and no PC sockets here. Personally i think a cobrahead looks more complete with a photocell or at least a shorting cap. I like the tall intermatic PCs used here but sometimes the low profile clear ALR ones are used. Those are okay i guess lol.
BTW, i just got two NOS Philips Alto F20T12 3000K lamps from 2005 (J5 and K5 with shield logos). The October lamp came with the sleeve and the september one had the cardboard piece with the pins loose so i asked my grandpa if i could have it and he said yep so i fixed the pins and it works nicely, as does the other. Of course there's the flicker to them that all low mercury lamps have but maybe it's just becuase it was the first time they'd ever been used... I removed two bad lamps from his troffers and wraps too. There was one troffer with the outer lamps unlit and one wrap wit flickering lamps (wrap is two lamp, troffer is four). Only one lamp from each fixture was bad so i fixed the wrap light and the troffer has the outer tubes delamped. I also played around with whether i like the inner or outer tubes lit and the outer tubes removed looks much better and the area is more evenly lit too. With the inner tubes removed the area right below the fixture is darker than around the fixture.
The tubes removed are a Philips F40T12/CW plus alto from March 2007 (no logo though; it is marked C7) and a no-name F40CW/RS/EW 34W cool white tube. I suspect it's philips since the date code is either 3E or 3K and the end caps are philips. Also, EW stands for "Econ-o-Watt" most likely. Did Philips carry over the Econ-o-Watt name from Westie? I think the lamps would date to 1993, which means they're the originals to the fixtures. Pretty good considering they're 34W tubes. Man those Advance Mark III energy saving 0.73A ballasts are NOISEY!
@Mike, I think the lights originally had shorting caps which were replaced with PCs. It's still odd for them to convert from relay to individual PC though. Cool that you got some lamps too, and yeah EW (Eww!) stands for Econ-o-watt and that name was also used by Westy.
@Jace here's a shot of one (the yellow thing above the sign) and I can probably get a better pic of one later this week.
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BTW, i just got two NOS Philips Alto F20T12 3000K lamps from 2005 (J5 and K5 with shield logos). The October lamp came with the sleeve and the september one had the cardboard piece with the pins loose so i asked my grandpa if i could have it and he said yep so i fixed the pins and it works nicely, as does the other. Of course there's the flicker to them that all low mercury lamps have but maybe it's just becuase it was the first time they'd ever been used... I removed two bad lamps from his troffers and wraps too. There was one troffer with the outer lamps unlit and one wrap wit flickering lamps (wrap is two lamp, troffer is four). Only one lamp from each fixture was bad so i fixed the wrap light and the troffer has the outer tubes delamped. I also played around with whether i like the inner or outer tubes lit and the outer tubes removed looks much better and the area is more evenly lit too. With the inner tubes removed the area right below the fixture is darker than around the fixture.
The tubes removed are a Philips F40T12/CW plus alto from March 2007 (no logo though; it is marked C7) and a no-name F40CW/RS/EW 34W cool white tube. I suspect it's philips since the date code is either 3E or 3K and the end caps are philips. Also, EW stands for "Econ-o-Watt" most likely. Did Philips carry over the Econ-o-Watt name from Westie? I think the lamps would date to 1993, which means they're the originals to the fixtures. Pretty good considering they're 34W tubes. Man those Advance Mark III energy saving 0.73A ballasts are NOISEY!
@Jace here's a shot of one (the yellow thing above the sign) and I can probably get a better pic of one later this week.