Cooper Lighting changes glassware on their small Streetworks Luminaires

[NiMo]

After a long association with the Westinghouse design Holophane glassware, Cooper Lighting recently changed over to the old style American Electric design for their OVX, OVG, and OVZ luminaires, I'll post pics of these in the near future.

[Mike]

REALLY?!?! So THAT'S why i saw a 60s style AE glass on a newer OVZ installed... That style glass is still made by Holophane today so i guess they just decided it was cheaper to go with a "standard" mold over a custom one? For a picture, click here.

[Antstar85]

Thats is weird, the state has been changing out fixtures on the interstates here and was wondering why the OVX fixtures installed had those glass lens. Very interesting.

[Mike]

when exacly did this change occur? was it in the past few months or earlier this year? The distribution is way better with the new glass. The old squared westie/crouse-hinds/cooper lens has a very poor distribution with the OVZ/OVX reflector imo.

[slz]

In the Worcester area, I noticed the new ovx's (that Wilmington wire has been installing) have had these new refractors since late last year so I would figure this is new for 2013.

[Mike]

Yeah they must have switched the glass design in fall of 2012. NGrid started installing Coopers around here again around that time and the first one I saw was here and I was puzzled as to why the glass looked like that of the 1960s AE and Westinghouse lights. Kinda like a full-circle with Westinghouse/Cooper since when the OV-15 first came out I think it used the same glass.

These new Cooper OVZs and OVXs have the smoothest lamp distribution I have ever seen with 250W and 400W HPS. No dark or bright spots, everything is evenly lit and smooth. Not super glarey either. Of course I wish they'd use medium sized cobraheads for 250W and 400W lamps, but the distribution is smooth enough where I guess I don't mind it. NGrid still uses GE M-250R2s for 50-100W HPS lights here.

[slz]

The push since the early 90's have been smaller profile fixtures. The medium fixtures haven't been prominent here for a long time.

[Mike]

Yeah NGrid uses small fixtures for 250W HPS but with GE, they used M-400s for 400W. Coopers are OVXs for 400W though. Cooper no longer offers a medium-sized drop lens fixture so they'd have to use the OVX unless they wanted FCO, in which case they'd use the OVF. The only 400W lights I've seen used here are in metropolitan areas like Providence so FCO lights aren't used. NGrid does use FCO lights in SE MA though. RI they still use drop lenses.