Yeah it's supposed to be remote ballasted but I have two mogul base 200W incandescents and stuck one in here. This is the biggest f-ing glarebomb EVER! It lit the entire sides of all the neighboring houses, and brightly too! The uplight from this thing is worse than from a yardblaster! The glare from the crescent moon wasn't too bad but there was quite a bit of light trespass into the neighbor's yard. I'm going to set the socket up a notch or two and then re-try the crescent moon again. I'll leave the crimefighter up for awhile but the regular M-250R is going up again next time I need lighting since the light trespass is so horrible. The thing illuminates EVERYTHING (which was kinda the point with these things, but still! I figured with a 200W incandescent it wouldn't be so bad but boy was I wrong!) I came home after dark and I almost felt sorry for the neighbors.
I suppose you could stick a SBMV in it if you want that mercury look lol. Anyway, I never installed mine so I didn't how big of a glarebomb this is lol.
Yeah I could. My SBMV is a medium base lamp but it's an NOS Westy so I sorta want to keep it that way (though I have used it periodically). I have some mogul to medium adapters but they suck since they can never get screwed in far enough and if they do, they get stuck.
These M-250R style crimefighters always used glass but the larger M-400A style ones (which were typically in 310w HPS) were polycarbonate. Not sure on the M-250R1 style crimefighters but the newer M-250A2 crimefighters used glass. Always closed bottom BTW and they never used PC sockets AFAIK.
I believe the newer M-250R1 and M-250A2 style Crimefighters use a different style of glass bucket. The M-250R ones use the same bucket as a Holophane RSL-2000 while the newer ones have a different style bucket.
I lit mine up recently and I guess I forgot how bright and glary the Crimefighters are.
Yeah the closest thing I've seen to a Crimefighter lit are those Holophane RSL-200 fixtures. A condo complex had then in HPS (I'd guess 150W but have no idea really) but they replaced them with LEDs a couple years ago (and I was actually glad LOL)
Toronto has a bunch of those (along with the Westinghouse version, the Viscount) along back alleys. They're HPS (70w?) and used where the streetlighting is HPS. In PSMH lit neighbourhoods, PSMH gumballs are used instead.
Since my Crimefighter was advertised as a Toronto streetlight, I wonder if the city used Crimefighters as alley lights back in the MV days.
Hmm it's possible. Would the lights have been made in Canada though? Pre-NAFTA it probably would have been expensive to import USA-made lights into Canada. Hmm. GE was strange though. They made a lot of custom fixtures for specific places and never really made them available to the general market (or never intended to anyway) but somehow they always did end up escaping lol.
I guess there was a chance mine was a Canadian made Crimefighter but too bad the original tag was long gone before I got it. Then again it came with a US Sylvania clear girder frame merc (which I should really upload a pic of lol) and the original ballast was stamped "GE Hendersonville, NC USA or something like that so it might not have even been used in Toronto.
Yeah, I've found for a custom light designed for Chicago, the Crimefighters have managed to have escaped to a lot of places. Then again I don't think any of the "C" M-250R1s made it out of Chicago aside from yours.
Oh yes that's right, I made a PDF for a new one for you. Yeah the crimefighters seem to have made it all around. Yeah my M-250CF (the HPS M-250R1 thing) was actually bought from Chicago. The eBay seller's location was Chicago. Interestingly, those M-250CFs were made as late as 1998, since I've seen some on eBay sans refractor and sans PC socket (they originally had them, but they were cut out for whatever reason) with newer GE labels and the WW-YYYY date code format and had to do a double-take. I wonder why they kept making those special M-250R1s after they discontinued the regular M-250R1 in 1985. I guess they never bothered making a M-250R2 version (that I know of anyways...) but they did roll out a Crimefighter based off the M-250A2 and there was a Crimefighter based off the M-250R1 before that (in addition to my M-250CF I guess).
Heh, I thought the one you made for me was the correct one as didn't only the really old M-250Rs have the blue tag. Interesting that GE kept the M-250CF until 1998 but then again it uses a different casting so I guess they just kept the molds for it. It seems GE had a bunch of uncatalogued items over the years. I have a feeling the M-400A2/R2 were still made as a hidden item between 1997 and 2008 and I believe GE also offered their 400w mercs in the BT shape until recently.
Yes yours does have the correct label. My Chicago M-250R1 is called the M-250CF and the ones that were on eBay had the newer tags that the started using around 1985 (and still use today). Before the mid-80s, they used the style tag that I made you, but printed on paper. They stopped using foil tags sometime between 1970 and 1973. I think 1970 or '71 was the last year for the foil tags. The blue tags were used before the crimefighter was invented (they stopped those in the VERY early 60s). the blue tags were much thicker (like thin sheet metal almost lol).
Yep the M-400R2 and M-400A2 (well the M-400A2 at least) was used after 1997. Chicago used M-400A2s and M-400A2 FCOs after GE stopped production on the M-400A crimefighters. Not sure if there was an M-400A2 crimefighter or not. I'd imagine there could be, as the M-400A2 FCO is the same body as the crimefighter would be. GE did make the /DX BT37 mercs (designed for highbays I think, or maybe just fixtures that required a BT shape or something) but the clear lamps were not in BT shape. I have a newer BT37 /DX 400W MV from around 2010-ish. They recently discontinued the BT37 400W MV and all 1000W MVs, so GE no longer makes any BT lamps.
Ahh thanks for the timeline regarding which tags were used. I guess GE probably found the foil tags too costly and switched to paper. I personally like the foil tags more, they seem more durable for outdoor equipment like streetlights but then again how many people check the tags after it's installed especially since you can get the wattage off the NEMA tag.
Ahh, I didn't know that the M-400A Crimefighter was discontinued that long ago. I thought they were made all the way to the 2000s but I guess by then, the M-250A2 Crimefighter was the replacement model. Yeah the only difference that a M-400A2 FCO has compared to the M-400A Crimfighter is the optical assembly and the socket bracket.
Interesting that the BT-37 mercs were only made in /DX, you would think there was a clear version but I guess the ED-37 would have sufficed. I also didn't know that they made the BT-37 mercs as late as 2010. I guess they discontinued them around the same time they discontinued the T17/PG17s. I also didn't know GE stopped making the 1kW mercs, although I suppose they don't really get much orders for those anyway.
Login
I lit mine up recently and I guess I forgot how bright and glary the Crimefighters are.
Since my Crimefighter was advertised as a Toronto streetlight, I wonder if the city used Crimefighters as alley lights back in the MV days.
Yeah, I've found for a custom light designed for Chicago, the Crimefighters have managed to have escaped to a lot of places. Then again I don't think any of the "C" M-250R1s made it out of Chicago aside from yours.
Yep the M-400R2 and M-400A2 (well the M-400A2 at least) was used after 1997. Chicago used M-400A2s and M-400A2 FCOs after GE stopped production on the M-400A crimefighters. Not sure if there was an M-400A2 crimefighter or not. I'd imagine there could be, as the M-400A2 FCO is the same body as the crimefighter would be. GE did make the /DX BT37 mercs (designed for highbays I think, or maybe just fixtures that required a BT shape or something) but the clear lamps were not in BT shape. I have a newer BT37 /DX 400W MV from around 2010-ish. They recently discontinued the BT37 400W MV and all 1000W MVs, so GE no longer makes any BT lamps.
Ahh, I didn't know that the M-400A Crimefighter was discontinued that long ago. I thought they were made all the way to the 2000s but I guess by then, the M-250A2 Crimefighter was the replacement model. Yeah the only difference that a M-400A2 FCO has compared to the M-400A Crimfighter is the optical assembly and the socket bracket.
Interesting that the BT-37 mercs were only made in /DX, you would think there was a clear version but I guess the ED-37 would have sufficed. I also didn't know that they made the BT-37 mercs as late as 2010. I guess they discontinued them around the same time they discontinued the T17/PG17s. I also didn't know GE stopped making the 1kW mercs, although I suppose they don't really get much orders for those anyway.