Old-ish looking streetlights in a parking-lot. Kind of a nice looking pole/arm setup...thats what actually caught my eye with these.
Don't know if they are MV or HPS
Location:
Littleton CO (a shopping center parking lot)
The poles are indeed very old. Probably held clamshells originally. As for the lights, they're American Electric series 25 lights. These appear the by pre-ITT, possibly late 60s to early 70s? I can see coated lamps through the glass so these are mercs.
I agree....early 70s is more likely due to the grey paint....plus i see the coated bulged shaped mers too....the size of the lamps I see indicate they are 400 watt mercs!
Coated HPS aren't too common plus if it was HPS there's more likely to have NEMa tags....
I think those may actually originally held incandescent gumballs but got upgraded with mercs. I've seem gumballs used as parking lights...
They both lack the classic ITT style hinge keeper on the bottom door, so it could be from the very early 70's or even late 60's. BTW, when did NEMA tags become standard on most fixtures? Mid 70's?
I'm believe the place was built sometime in the 1970's (don't remember what store used to be there...its simply been too long. at some point it was split up & 1/2 became an auto repair place)
@LilCinnamon Its on the corner of Lowell & Belleview.. (pic is the fixture at the end with the long since closed up store).
Looks like one has a photocell while the other doesn't. Perhaps the one photocell controlls/controlled both fixtures? This pole looks way older than the 70s though. This looks like a 1940s-60s pole.
I did some searching for property tax records because I was thinking it might be older than the 1970's ... Looks like the building was actually built in 1960 .
Yeah i guess that sounds about right... Do these have transformer bases (tapered box type thing in between the foundation and the pole base) are is the pole siply bolted directly to the foundation?
The ballasts to the original fixtures may be locsted in the base, but odds are they were removed when the fixtures were changed. Another possibility is that these fixtures are conencted to the original ballasts and they simply changed out the clamshells with empty cobrahead housings to have the new "modern look" and stay in budget. I'm thinking these probably have their own ballasts though and the ones in the base were removed. You can always check a pole that's sort of out of direct view or in a less busy spot of the parking lot. Just remove the plate/door to the transformer base and peek inside. Don't do it when anyone's around or they could mistake you for a copper theive or something. I've done it before without the luck of finding any ballasts in the base though.
Actually it's possible the fixture are original after all! They made those arms and poles and STILL DO today!
A careful look in this pic, it looks like newer type...note the pole is not hexagon? And trasformer bases were used even if ballast was not used.....the transformer base does NOT automatically mean it had a ballast in base. NYC had a bunch of incandescent cuplights with poles installed in early 1950, installing thousands of them...and ALL of them had transformer bases. And I've seen working incandescent with transformer bases....transformer bases also serves as an access to the wires and to hide bolts from the ground....
Another way to check if there's a ballast in the base is to see if you hear it buzzing at night. I've looked inside a T-base before, it was already opened so I looked inside and found a ballast can inside.
I really don't know..I drove by there on friday & noticed the parking lot lights all were simply gone
Half the building has been empty for years but the other half is still in use (don't believe there is any plans to demo it, but wouldn't surprise me either if it happened)
sounds odd... if you make it around that area soon, can you get a pic? was there any trace of the lights (maybe a dumpster or a trailor or a pile of poles in the back)? Yeah you would've seen the last one lol.
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Coated HPS aren't too common plus if it was HPS there's more likely to have NEMa tags....
I think those may actually originally held incandescent gumballs but got upgraded with mercs. I've seem gumballs used as parking lights...
@LilCinnamon Its on the corner of Lowell & Belleview.. (pic is the fixture at the end with the long since closed up store).
Yep looks like they have transformer bases...
So would the ballasts actually be in that transformer base, rather than the fixtures then?
A careful look in this pic, it looks like newer type...note the pole is not hexagon? And trasformer bases were used even if ballast was not used.....the transformer base does NOT automatically mean it had a ballast in base. NYC had a bunch of incandescent cuplights with poles installed in early 1950, installing thousands of them...and ALL of them had transformer bases. And I've seen working incandescent with transformer bases....transformer bases also serves as an access to the wires and to hide bolts from the ground....
Another way to check if there's a ballast in the base is to see if you hear it buzzing at night. I've looked inside a T-base before, it was already opened so I looked inside and found a ballast can inside.
Sadly these are now GONE
Half the building has been empty for years but the other half is still in use (don't believe there is any plans to demo it, but wouldn't surprise me either if it happened)
Sure I can take a pic sometime..that place isn't too far from me (don't know if I'll get the chance this week).
edit:
Image of The base #105B
new edit:
Here is the replacement fixtures #130