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Fisher Pierce Ancillary Power Tap This is a power tap sent to me by Ryan (thanks!). It twists into the PC socket of the street light to give line voltage power to an auxiliary device mounted to the light's mounting arm. This one has a weird plug that I've cut off and left 2" stripped leads coming out of the device. This particular one is set-up for 24/7 power to the auxiliary device but it wouldn't be hard to modify it to work off the load side of the PC, but it would be important to remember to keep the maximum load to 1000W INCLUDING the street light. With this 24/7 power set-up, the auxiliary load is limited only to the wire gauge of the cord on this ancillary tap. The cord on this is 16/2 (no ground) and bears an ampacity of 13 amps according to the label on the case. These are often used for those antenna things on the street lights in urban areas that read the "smart" meters. The ones with the PC-controlled aux load are generally for christmas lights or other event lighting. I've seen them used to power a flood light added to the pole when the pole is metal so they don't have to do any wiring lol. Keywords: Gear

Fisher Pierce Ancillary Power Tap

This is a power tap sent to me by Ryan (thanks!). It twists into the PC socket of the street light to give line voltage power to an auxiliary device mounted to the light's mounting arm. This one has a weird plug that I've cut off and left 2" stripped leads coming out of the device. This particular one is set-up for 24/7 power to the auxiliary device but it wouldn't be hard to modify it to work off the load side of the PC, but it would be important to remember to keep the maximum load to 1000W INCLUDING the street light. With this 24/7 power set-up, the auxiliary load is limited only to the wire gauge of the cord on this ancillary tap. The cord on this is 16/2 (no ground) and bears an ampacity of 13 amps according to the label on the case.

These are often used for those antenna things on the street lights in urban areas that read the "smart" meters. The ones with the PC-controlled aux load are generally for christmas lights or other event lighting. I've seen them used to power a flood light added to the pole when the pole is metal so they don't have to do any wiring lol.

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File information
Filename:20180321_190022.jpg
Album name:Mike / My Photocells
Keywords:Gear
Filesize:557 KiB
Date added:Mar 22, 2018
Dimensions:2576 x 1932 pixels
Displayed:294 times
URL:http://www.galleryoflights.org/mb/gallery/displayimage.php?pid=22865
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Comment 1 to 7 of 7
Page: 1

joe_347V   [Mar 23, 2018 at 04:15 AM]
Very interesting, kinda funny to see they just hacked up a regular PC housing to make this. Laughing

Odd plug too, I wonder if it was part of wireless hub. I think FP also makes generic ones with a regular 5-15 plug on it instead.
lightingfan8902   [Mar 23, 2018 at 01:21 PM]
I found a couple of these on ebay.
streetlight98   [Mar 23, 2018 at 11:24 PM]
Yeah it seriously is a Fisher Pierce PC cover. I removed the receptacle to see how this was made and they just carved a hole in the top for the PC socket and two small hols where the PC socket's screws do through and are nutted on the inside. The photocell socket leads are simply soldered onto the appropriate pins on the base of the unit, with the black and white cord wires crimped onto the black and white PC socket leads. I could make the cord controlled by the PC by moving the crimp/stab connector over to the red PC socket wire.

Yep Sun-Tech made this version, one with an ungrounded female 15A plug end, and one with just pigtail ends. Now it appears they make one with the plug mounted right into the housing (no cord) and the housing is a molded plastic unit instead of a PC cover lol. See here.

Also appears that Ripley has a full line of power taps too.
lightingfan8902   [Mar 24, 2018 at 05:00 AM]
I like to get one of these, and connect the wire to a light fixture.
joe_347V   [Mar 25, 2018 at 12:43 AM]
Interesting that Ripley has one with a transformer for 120v aux power from other voltage poles. I noticed that some of the adapters linked have grounded outlets, I wonder how is the ground connected, it is tied to neutral or just left floating. Shocked

Would be neat to buy or make one from a dead PC for the collection though.

EDIT: Seems like FP makes one with a built in PoE injector. PoE is Power over ethernet, usually used for things like cameras and wifi access points. It allows them to have one cable for power and data.
streetlight98   [Mar 25, 2018 at 06:30 PM]
At the utility pole, ground and neutral are usually the same thing but definitely wouldn't want to use one of those on a residential pole or on a phase-to-phase voltage if the ground is tied to neutral lol. Floating ground would be bad too.
HPSM250R2   [Mar 28, 2018 at 01:07 AM]
Sun-Tech has made those other types of power taps for years they're not new. Ripley has too.

Comment 1 to 7 of 7
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