Interesting concept, the hinge allows you to easily replace and service fixtures without using a ladder. I suppose only small cobraheads would fit though.

Thanks! Yeah that's the idea. My yard has a bit of a slope to it so ladders don't stay super secure. Plus if I open it up and find any surprises (like wasps) I'd rather deal with them at ground level rather than up on a ladder above my head.

If I direct buried a piece of 6x6 in the ground at the proper depth it would be much more secure and I could see mounting up to a 400W light on a 6ft arm but the base of this is pretty lame lol. Just a 30" mailbox spike that you pound in the ground with a sledgehammer lol. If we get any major hurricanes I'll probably lower the pole to be safe. Wouldn't want to crush any of my light.

The only draw back of this is that it's pretty heavy when go to lower it. I can't imagine trying to lower it with a 40 pound 400W cobrahead on it with a 6ft arm and another five feet taller lol. Plus there's a massive 5/8" bolt sticking out the back of the top of the pole which will impale your skull if you loose your grip on the pole as you lower it lol. It turned out OK but it's not without its flaws lol. I wanted to use a 4X4 for the pole but didn't know how well it would hold up on its own so I decided to go with a 6x6. 4x4 would have been much cheaper. The 6x6 cost me over $20. A 4x4 12ft long is only like $15. $5 less for 1.5X the height lol.

I wouldn't have been able to go any higher anyway though because of the fence. I'd have to move the pole out past the shed where it would basically be sticking out in the middle of the yard. Would look kinda stupid. Though to the average person driving down my street this probably looks odd enough lol. This set-up is clearly visible from the street as you can see here.

I adjusted the distribution of this light to Type III so the light pattern wouldn't be as long (to keep the light within my yard as best as possible) and it creates a bit of a "V" pattern. It does a pretty good job of keeping the light in the yard too. I might tilt the light up a bit more to throw the light further toward the main part of my yard though. It's tilted up as far as it will go but I can cheat and use the arm stopper as a shim to raise it up even higher lol. I want to try my M-250A on this set-up once I get comfortable with it's ricketyness. Once I feel it can support the extra weight I'll give it a try.

Yeah you'll probably need to use some sorta of gas strut to prevent the pole from slamming with down with a medium sized fixture. Turns out that they do make 6x6 post spikes but I would probably probably pour a concrete foundation with a 6x6 post mount if I was building a pole. Or order a real anchor base pole lol. I suppose a 10' pole would be more than enough in a yard.