(OT) Fluorescent Light Bulb Warning.
 

Joe Analssandrini wrote:

Dear Bruce (any everyone else here),

Within the last two months General Electric and Konica Minolta have
signed a strategic alliance agreement to develop and commercialize
Organic-Light-Emitting-Diode (OLED) devices for home and industrial
lighting applications. It is their intent to have these devices on the
market within three years! OLEDs can be fabricated in sheet form which
is flexible (imagine THAT!), thin, and lightweight. This form of
lighting may eventually be incorporated into walls or ceilings,
eliminating the need for separate light fixtures (table lamps, and so
forth). Color temperature can be anything desired! They've got it NOW;
they must develop inexpensive manufacturing techniques for it to
become commercially viable.

Obviously those two companies are quite confident in their ability to
do so.

And of course the OLED's energy usage is but a small fraction of what
is used in todays bulbs.

Best,

Joe


Last I knew, a problem with OLEDs was a limited lifespan compared with
regular LEDs.

(OT) Fluorescent Light Bulb Warning.
 

D Peter Maus wrote:

Actually, they are, in a way, getting in on the LED wagon. Here in
The Windy, as well as in a good number of venues I've visited in
Wisconsin, the traffic lights have been changed from incandescent, to
LED arrays. They're very harsh to look at without the original color
filters used with the incandescents because the colors are pure, and the
viewing angle is narrow...putting the output of nearly 100 high output
LED's into a narrow beam. Small matter. Slap the filter over the LED's
and you've got a mellower color output with no diminution in brightness. ]

They'll last. Lower maintenance costs. Total energy for the traffic
system is reduced, but not by as much as you might think. But they
depending on installation and operating parameters, produce a hellaceous
amount of RF noise. The LED arrays in my area cast RFI shadows as far
inland as my house.


They are already having to replace LED traffic lights that are barely
a year old. One of the Red LED lights near my house started failing at
six months, and continued till only about 10$ of it still worked. Some
whole strings were out, while others had LEDs that were so dim you could
barely see them. One hot summer was all it took to start the failures.
I see quite a few green LED lights with several dead LEDs, as well.


--
Service to my country? Been there, Done that, and I've got my DD214 to
prove it.
Member of DAV #85.

Michael A. Terrell
Central Florida

(OT) Fluorescent Light Bulb Warning.
 

Michael A. Terrell wrote:
D Peter Maus wrote:
Actually, they are, in a way, getting in on the LED wagon. Here
in The Windy, as well as in a good number of venues I've visited
in Wisconsin, the traffic lights have been changed from
incandescent, to LED arrays. They're very harsh to look at
without the original color filters used with the incandescents
because the colors are pure, and the viewing angle is
narrow...putting the output of nearly 100 high output LED's into
a narrow beam. Small matter. Slap the filter over the LED's and
you've got a mellower color output with no diminution in
brightness. ]

They'll last. Lower maintenance costs. Total energy for the
traffic system is reduced, but not by as much as you might think.
But they depending on installation and operating parameters,
produce a hellaceous amount of RF noise. The LED arrays in my
area cast RFI shadows as far inland as my house.


They are already having to replace LED traffic lights that are
barely a year old. One of the Red LED lights near my house started
failing at six months, and continued till only about 10$ of it
still worked. Some whole strings were out, while others had LEDs
that were so dim you could barely see them. One hot summer was all
it took to start the failures. I see quite a few green LED lights
with several dead LEDs, as well.






Yeah, I asked one of the workers at the local highway department about
that. He says that QC is inconsistent between suppliers. They had
similar problems in some suburbs around Chicago, though I've never seen
it. Attributed to consequences of buying from the wrong vendors.
Locally, that kind of failure is not an issue. Two villages over...more
than a few headaches.

I asked if the issue was related to poor voltage/current regulation,
or just poor construction. The guy I talked to said he had no idea.

(OT) Fluorescent Light Bulb Warning.
 

D Peter Maus wrote:

Michael A. Terrell wrote:
D Peter Maus wrote:
Actually, they are, in a way, getting in on the LED wagon. Here
in The Windy, as well as in a good number of venues I've visited
in Wisconsin, the traffic lights have been changed from
incandescent, to LED arrays. They're very harsh to look at
without the original color filters used with the incandescents
because the colors are pure, and the viewing angle is
narrow...putting the output of nearly 100 high output LED's into
a narrow beam. Small matter. Slap the filter over the LED's and
you've got a mellower color output with no diminution in
brightness. ]

They'll last. Lower maintenance costs. Total energy for the
traffic system is reduced, but not by as much as you might think.
But they depending on installation and operating parameters,
produce a hellaceous amount of RF noise. The LED arrays in my
area cast RFI shadows as far inland as my house.


They are already having to replace LED traffic lights that are
barely a year old. One of the Red LED lights near my house started
failing at six months, and continued till only about 10$ of it
still worked. Some whole strings were out, while others had LEDs
that were so dim you could barely see them. One hot summer was all
it took to start the failures. I see quite a few green LED lights
with several dead LEDs, as well.





Yeah, I asked one of the workers at the local highway department about
that. He says that QC is inconsistent between suppliers. They had
similar problems in some suburbs around Chicago, though I've never seen
it. Attributed to consequences of buying from the wrong vendors.
Locally, that kind of failure is not an issue. Two villages over...more
than a few headaches.

I asked if the issue was related to poor voltage/current regulation,
or just poor construction. The guy I talked to said he had no idea.


I used to work with someone who now works for the county technical
department. I'm going to see if I can get my hands on some bad LED
traffic light assemblies to do failure analysis.


--
Service to my country? Been there, Done that, and I've got my DD214 to
prove it.
Member of DAV #85.

Michael A. Terrell
Central Florida

(OT) Fluorescent Light Bulb Warning.
 

Michael A. Terrell wrote:
D Peter Maus wrote:
Michael A. Terrell wrote:
D Peter Maus wrote:
Actually, they are, in a way, getting in on the LED wagon. Here
in The Windy, as well as in a good number of venues I've visited
in Wisconsin, the traffic lights have been changed from
incandescent, to LED arrays. They're very harsh to look at
without the original color filters used with the incandescents
because the colors are pure, and the viewing angle is
narrow...putting the output of nearly 100 high output LED's into
a narrow beam. Small matter. Slap the filter over the LED's and
you've got a mellower color output with no diminution in
brightness. ]

They'll last. Lower maintenance costs. Total energy for the
traffic system is reduced, but not by as much as you might think.
But they depending on installation and operating parameters,
produce a hellaceous amount of RF noise. The LED arrays in my
area cast RFI shadows as far inland as my house.

They are already having to replace LED traffic lights that are
barely a year old. One of the Red LED lights near my house started
failing at six months, and continued till only about 10$ of it
still worked. Some whole strings were out, while others had LEDs
that were so dim you could barely see them. One hot summer was all
it took to start the failures. I see quite a few green LED lights
with several dead LEDs, as well.



Yeah, I asked one of the workers at the local highway department about
that. He says that QC is inconsistent between suppliers. They had
similar problems in some suburbs around Chicago, though I've never seen
it. Attributed to consequences of buying from the wrong vendors.
Locally, that kind of failure is not an issue. Two villages over...more
than a few headaches.

I asked if the issue was related to poor voltage/current regulation,
or just poor construction. The guy I talked to said he had no idea.


I used to work with someone who now works for the county technical
department. I'm going to see if I can get my hands on some bad LED
traffic light assemblies to do failure analysis.




Excellent. Post your results, if you don't mind.

(OT) Fluorescent Light Bulb Warning.
 

D Peter Maus wrote:

Michael A. Terrell wrote:

I used to work with someone who now works for the county technical
department. I'm going to see if I can get my hands on some bad LED
traffic light assemblies to do failure analysis.



Excellent. Post your results, if you don't mind.


No problem. I'm mainly interested in the power supply, since strings
of about 12 go out at a time. I want to find out if its a crappy SMPS,
ar maybe a couple to reduce the chance of catastrophic failures. Now,
all I have to do is get my hands on some samples. I may try contacting
Florida DOT. If they are rebuildable, I am looking for a few projects to
create part time jobs for local Disabled Veterans. I'll bet that they
can replace bad capacitors and LEDS after they are troubleshot.


--
Service to my country? Been there, Done that, and I've got my DD214 to
prove it.
Member of DAV #85.

Michael A. Terrell
Central Florida

(OT) Fluorescent Light Bulb Warning.
 

Michael A. Terrell wrote:

D Peter Maus wrote:

Michael A. Terrell wrote:

I used to work with someone who now works for the county technical
department. I'm going to see if I can get my hands on some bad LED
traffic light assemblies to do failure analysis.

Excellent. Post your results, if you don't mind.

No problem. I'm mainly interested in the power supply, since strings
of about 12 go out at a time. I want to find out if its a crappy SMPS,
ar maybe a couple to reduce the chance of catastrophic failures. Now,
all I have to do is get my hands on some samples. I may try contacting
Florida DOT. If they are rebuildable, I am looking for a few projects to
create part time jobs for local Disabled Veterans. I'll bet that they
can replace bad capacitors and LEDS after they are troubleshot.

The first generation of LED traffic lights in my area started to fail in
about a year. It looked like there were random failures of each LED
element. I didn't notice if they were part of a string. The newer LED
traffic lights are lasting much longer. I've also wondered why the new
sodium street lights seem to have a shorter life than the mercury vapor
ones they replaced. The opposite is supposed to be true. The sodium
lights can be a serious source of RFI when they start to cycle on and
off at the end of their life. Some people think they have the ability to
make the sodium lights go out when they're near them. It's really just a
coincidence but you can't convince them of that. If you do a Google
search for 'street lights turning off' you'll find all kinds of
testimonials, including paranormal explanations.

(OT) Fluorescent Light Bulb Warning.
 

I don't know if the street lights on the street I live on are sodium or
mercury lights.Whatever they are,they last a very long time.The traffic
lights around here seem to be working ok.
cuhulin

(OT) Fluorescent Light Bulb Warning.
 

HFguy wrote:

The first generation of LED traffic lights in my area started to fail in
about a year. It looked like there were random failures of each LED
element. I didn't notice if they were part of a string. The newer LED
traffic lights are lasting much longer. I've also wondered why the new
sodium street lights seem to have a shorter life than the mercury vapor
ones they replaced. The opposite is supposed to be true. The sodium
lights can be a serious source of RFI when they start to cycle on and
off at the end of their life. Some people think they have the ability to
make the sodium lights go out when they're near them. It's really just a
coincidence but you can't convince them of that. If you do a Google
search for 'street lights turning off' you'll find all kinds of
testimonials, including paranormal explanations.


One that was replaced last week already has a dead red LED. I saw it
this morning on the way to the Memorial Day ceremony at our Veteran's
Park.


--
Service to my country? Been there, Done that, and I've got my DD214 to
prove it.
Member of DAV #85.

Michael A. Terrell
Central Florida

(OT) Fluorescent Light Bulb Warning.
 

Go ask Jackson,Mississippi (I live here) what kind of traffic lights
they use.
cuhulin

(OT) Fluorescent Light Bulb Warning.
 

On Mon, 28 May 2007 11:36:28 -0500, wrote:

Go ask Jackson,Mississippi (I live here) what kind of traffic lights
they use.
cuhulin


Candles ? or have they updated to kerosene ?? ;o)
rj

(OT) Fluorescent Light Bulb Warning.
 

"" wrote:

On Mon, 28 May 2007 11:36:28 -0500, wrote:

Go ask Jackson,Mississippi (I live here) what kind of traffic lights
they use.
cuhulin

Candles ? or have they updated to kerosene ?? ;o)
rj


Campfires and smoke signals?


--
Service to my country? Been there, Done that, and I've got my DD214 to
prove it.
Member of DAV #85.

Michael A. Terrell
Central Florida

(OT) Fluorescent Light Bulb Warning.
 

I reckon y'all haven't been to Jackson,(I like it here,please don't hate
me) Mississippi before?
cuhulin

(OT) Fluorescent Light Bulb Warning.
 

Yesterday,Goobernor Haley Barbour was in Batesville,Mississippi.General
Electric is going to build a Jet engines parts (fan parts,something like
that) factory in Batesville.(old news to me,I have known about it since
last year) The G.E.parts factory will be up and running in early
2009.(Rolls Royce has a Ship/Boat engine factory in South
Mississippi.y'all would be supprised at what is in Mississippi,prettiest
gals in the World too)
There is a bulding boom going on in many places in Mississippi.

Candles,campfires,smoke signals? What? no traffic lights? Let me step
back up on that chair,it's getting ''deep'' in here.
cuhulin

(OT) Fluorescent Light Bulb Warning.
 

Sheeeeeeettt,,,, Terrell,,,, I thought you had at least a half corpuscle
of brain matter.(smoke signals)

International Star (them truck people cats) in cahoots with West
Point,Mississippi, (I did not say West Point,New York.I like New York)
lookin kind of like West Point,Mississippi is/might be going to be
building some Militaty V shaped belly bottom Military vehicles for our
U.S.Troops.

Don't try your Florida sissyness on me.I am too old a cat to get screwed
by a kitten.

I Salute you,SIR!
cuhulin

(OT) Fluorescent Light Bulb Warning.
 

Greetings;

I noticed that Edmonton has a few traffic lights with LED arrays. I like
the WALK light since it's so much brighter and easier for me to see. It
would be most interesting to find out how the lights deal with Alberta's
harsh winters.

By the way, the chips in those multi-colour LED lights cause considerable AM
RFI. Straight LED arrays don't as far as I've noticed. I have 4
floodlights and 3 reading lamp bulbs which don't bother the radios at all.
The only LED bulb causing interference is that multi-colour one. I guess
the traffic bulbs have some sort of switching or power supply which causes
the interference.

Sincerely,

Bruce Atchison - author of When a Man Loves a Rabbit (Learning and Living
With Bunnies).
http://www.bookadz.com/batchison.htm
http://www.bookstream.biz/cgi-bin/bo...s&store_id=102



--
Posted via a free Usenet account from http://www.teranews.com

(OT) Fluorescent Light Bulb Warning.
 

In message , Bruce Atchison
- author writes
Greetings;

I noticed that Edmonton has a few traffic lights with LED arrays. I like
the WALK light since it's so much brighter and easier for me to see. It
would be most interesting to find out how the lights deal with Alberta's
harsh winters.

By the way, the chips in those multi-colour LED lights cause considerable AM
RFI. Straight LED arrays don't as far as I've noticed. I have 4
floodlights and 3 reading lamp bulbs which don't bother the radios at all.
The only LED bulb causing interference is that multi-colour one. I guess
the traffic bulbs have some sort of switching or power supply which causes
the interference.


Aren't some LEDs pulsed in order to get higher average intensity? This
might be a cause of RFI.
Ian.
--

(OT) Fluorescent Light Bulb Warning.
 

In article ,
Ian Jackson wrote:

In message , Bruce Atchison
- author writes
Greetings;

I noticed that Edmonton has a few traffic lights with LED arrays. I like
the WALK light since it's so much brighter and easier for me to see. It
would be most interesting to find out how the lights deal with Alberta's
harsh winters.

By the way, the chips in those multi-colour LED lights cause considerable AM
RFI. Straight LED arrays don't as far as I've noticed. I have 4
floodlights and 3 reading lamp bulbs which don't bother the radios at all.
The only LED bulb causing interference is that multi-colour one. I guess
the traffic bulbs have some sort of switching or power supply which causes
the interference.


Aren't some LEDs pulsed in order to get higher average intensity? This
might be a cause of RFI.
Ian.

Not that I am aware of but a DC to DC step up supply might be used to
increase the voltage.

--
Telamon
Ventura, California

(OT) Fluorescent Light Bulb Warning.
 

Whatever search engines y'all like,
How do LED Traffic Lights work?
cuhulin

(OT) Fluorescent Light Bulb Warning.
 

On May 22, 8:50 am, bpnjensen wrote:
On May 20, 3:14 pm, "Brenda Ann" wrote:



"Joe Analssandrini" wrote in message

roups.com...

Have you tried any of theLEDflashlights? I bought several from AES.
They sell a model for $9.99 that is machined from aluminum and runs on
3 AAA batteries: "HOUSE OF DEALS 9LED/3AAAFLSLT*" see this listed at:


http://search.cartserver.com/search/...&cartid=a-6994...

It's the third item down. I have to tell you this thing is BRIGHT! AND
it's made as well as any MagLight I own. These will give you something
of an idea as to what can be done with LEDs. If this can be
accomplished with flashlights, I can't wait until they achieve this
level of lighting quality with homeLEDlight bulbs.

(I've even seen someLEDflashlights in the "Dollar Tree" store. They
have only 3 LEDs and are not as bright or as well made as the AES
models, but for only a dollar ... )

I used to think the multi-LEDflashlights were bright (and, indeed, compared
to a small incandescent flashlight, they are... but much more difuse). The
ones that are REALLY bright are theLuxeon® typeLEDlights. These are the
ones most likely to eventually make it into meaningful home lighting. I
have some 32LEDlamps that I use in various places. They are about the same
brightness level as the little 7 1/2wattsign bulbs (but of course use less
than onewatt). TheLuxeonis many times brighter, and with just a single
light source. These are quite a bit more expensive for the higher power
ones, but the 1wattand 3wattversions are coming down in price rapidly.

Not mine:http://cgi.ebay.com/5-WATT-LUXEON-LE...QQitemZ...Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

I agree with Joe and Brenda about LEDs, and I cannot believe that the
powers that be have not jumped onto the bandwagon with these things.
Their potential is enormous. They are fairly cheap, last nearly
forever (maybe that's why?) and use a shred of the energy used by any
other viable light source.

Um, that's bull. CFLs are better then most (all?) current LED based
sources when it comes to luminous efficacy. True, they have other
problems and are unsuitable for small lights (torches, car lights etc)
and for some specialist stuff like traffic lights but LEDs to not yet
beat CFLs in terms or luminous efficacy. They will probably eventually
win but they're not winning yet. And actually most government (don't
know about US governments) would much rather have things that nearly
last forever. Perhaps not the manufacturers but that's a different
matter.