LED Street Lights vs Sodium Streetlights

Andy From Sligo · 19-04-2017 10:47pm #1

The estate at the back of us has had its street lights (or rather just the head part insides, or bulb part) changed to white LED lights.

I can see why council's are preferring these, cheaper/economical to run, low maintenance, long lasting but I personally think they are a poor substitute Lumen/brightness wise to conventional sodium SOX / HPS lights - I bet the outlay is huge in the first place isnt it? most probably saves money over time I suppose.... but yeah, they dont seem to be as bright as the ones they replace.

19-04-2017 10:48pm

I'm in Drogheda and they started doing that, too.

Although It's weird having white lights, i find the power output of them to be much, much higher than the normal lights. They're like spotlights instead of normal lights.

Delighted to see them.

aaronjumper · 19-04-2017 10:52pm

Ah lighten up will you.

Ubbquittious · 19-04-2017 10:55pm

There isn't much of a difference in efficiency between sodium lights and LED

Andy From Sligo · 19-04-2017 10:57pm

Deleted User wrote: »

I'm in Drogheda and they started doing that, too.

Although It's weird having white lights, i find the power output of them to be much, much higher than the normal lights. They're like spotlights instead of normal lights.

Delighted to see them.

its so unusal when your weird to seeing the warm orange glow of sodium street lights - thats good though that you have noticed the LED ones being brighter though , I often find they are dimmer than the lights they are replacing.

I suppose the other plus I didnt mention in my OP was that if there was a power cut at least these LED street lights will start up full brightness when the power comes back on, no warm up time - plus when the sodium lamps come to the end of their life they flicker on an off or stay on for 10 mins, go out for 10mins and then come on again in a cycle - and LED runs cool, although I shouldnt think thats a factor or plus in the case of streetlights ?

punisher5112 · 19-04-2017 10:57pm

There are so many different types and wattage types been fitted.

Height of the pole also comes into how good or bad.

Higher it is the more flat the type of fitting where led is inside and not coming down out of the lenses where you see the light all around coming from what looks like a cube.

Much brighter and efficient and long life so really is a win All round.

Andy From Sligo · 19-04-2017 10:59pm

Ubbquittious wrote: »

There isn't much of a difference in efficiency between sodium lights and LED

do you mean by that , that they dont use much less electricity? - a SOX lamp could be around 35w per bulb and a SON around 70w isnt it? - I dunno what those LED ones would use per 1

s4uv3 · 19-04-2017 11:01pm

I love lamp.

Four Phucs Ache · 19-04-2017 11:03pm

Our street got these aswell, extremely bright but got used to it after a while.At first it was like the road was inside a stadium but now it looks familiar/normal.

NIMAN · 19-04-2017 11:05pm

Noticed them being changed out recently on local roads as well.

Afaik, in the North anyway, any new housing development is only allowed to have LED lighting. And all new road lighting has to be LED too.

They are so energy efficient, its the way to go.

Only thing I am not mad on, is the ones they changed out locally are a cool white rather than a warm white, and they are a little bit harsh.

NIMAN · 19-04-2017 11:05pm

Noticed them being changed out recently on local roads as well.

Afaik, in the North anyway, any new housing development is only allowed to have LED lighting. And all new road lighting has to be LED too.

They are so energy efficient, its the way to go.

Only thing I am not mad on, is the ones they changed out locally are a cool white rather than a warm white, and they are a little bit harsh. Very clinical.

Andy From Sligo · 19-04-2017 11:07pm

70w Son lamp is around 12euro at my local electrical factor - I dunno what the price of say 35w SOX , I should say now they are getting on the expensive side these days around 25-30quid maybe? - but the bulk quantity that councils and road departments buy these in means they must get them a lot cheaper. I wonder how much they outlay for these new LED ones, especially as they got to get a contractor to go out and replace all these fittings or bulbs in the street light. I wonder what they are doing with all the old SOX and SON's Bulbs that they take out and that still maybe have quite a few years of life in them still? - I'd be intrigued to know.

stevek93 · 19-04-2017 11:07pm

Anyone notice they have a werid light to them hard to describe but they don't seem to luminate everything. It's more of a dull dark grey lightning.

I had a LED flood light in my old house it was impossible to do any type of work using the light couldn't see sh!T. I would be concerned this may impact drivers hopefully not just my two cents.

NIMAN · 19-04-2017 11:10pm

stevek93 wrote: »

Anyone notice they have a werid light to them hard to describe but they don't seem to luminate everything. It's more of a dull dark grey lightning.

I had a LED flood light in my old house it was impossible to do any type of work using the light couldn't see sh!T. I would be concerned this may impact drivers hopefully not just my two cents.

If they produce a certain amount of lumen then they should light up things exactly the same as others sources of illumination.

Often LED lighting is at the cool end of the sprectrum, more a white/cold light rather than the yellow/warm lights we have grown up knowing. Maybe thats what you mean? As I said above, the ones I seen locally are very white as opposed to yellow.

Andy From Sligo · 19-04-2017 11:13pm

NIMAN wrote: »

Noticed them being changed out recently on local roads as well.

Afaik, in the North anyway, any new housing development is only allowed to have LED lighting. And all new road lighting has to be LED too.

They are so energy efficient, its the way to go.

Only thing I am not mad on, is the ones they changed out locally are a cool white rather than a warm white, and they are a little bit harsh.

yep these ones in the housing estate at the back of us are between white and cool white

a retail park in our town has white LED and lower lighting column ... but the street lights leading up to the retail park roundabout are taller lamps and are SON's - so its quite a weird mix of colour and brightness - they never changed the original SON lights leading up to the retail park to LED when they built the retail park . Maybe one day soon they will all be matching.

alchemist33 · 19-04-2017 11:13pm

We changed our kitchen lights from standard to LED yesterday and now its like being in the Starship Enterprise. I like them.

Fr_Dougal · 19-04-2017 11:14pm

The earlier LEDs give off a bluish hue, more modern LEDs are warmer. But to make they warmer you're making them less efficient.

ibstar · 19-04-2017 11:15pm

Read an article where it said that white light increases stopping distance by 20%

jca · 19-04-2017 11:21pm

They give a great light but I find it a very cold type of light, they remind me of films that supposedly portrayed what living behind the iron curtain was like.

Andy From Sligo · 19-04-2017 11:25pm

its surprising that in the case of a retrofit (I think thats what they call it) where they take out a SOX or SON sodium lamp out of the head at the top of the lighting colunn and fit LED in there instead that they dont put an orange plastic film or gel in the lens part of the light, I shouldnt think it would dim the light much if at all because it would be nearly transparent , but with a tint of colour - theatre and TV production use these kinds of transparent film on their studio lights and the such . Maybe it comes down to cost, or maybe the bright white light of LED is better for things like security cameras and CCTV's and etc and general safety. - but you can also get a pretty good LED in warm white colour now these days, although I would say anything commercial wise / trade wise would be more in the bright crisp white to bluish white category and the warm white LED more for domestic installations maybe.

At christmas time I bought a couple of sets of LED tree lights from homebase and it said on the front of the box 'warm white' and I though ah yeah but I bet they will be a white or bluish white but when they were lit I must say I was impressed with the colour rendering, they was indeed pretty much matched to a warm white tungsten bulb we had in the room - not bad at all.

Andy From Sligo · 19-04-2017 11:29pm

alchemist33 wrote: »

We changed our kitchen lights from standard to LED yesterday and now its like being in the Starship Enterprise. I like them.

I'd say after a while your eyes will adjust to them and you wont notice the difference - live long and prosper!

Andy From Sligo · 19-04-2017 11:31pm

Fr_Dougal wrote: »

The earlier LEDs give off a bluish hue, more modern LEDs are warmer. But to make they warmer you're making them less efficient.

I wonder how they make them warmer? - maybe they put a tiny amount of red colour into lens of the LED bulb as they manufacture them?

Andy From Sligo · 19-04-2017 11:41pm

I should imagine when you are designing street lights for an estate the planners look at Lumens of the (lets say) SON lamps, say they are 70w each and throw out around 5500lumen's and then taking into account the reflector and lens in the head so they space the lamp posts accordingly (and there is not very many on the estate behind us) well if they change to LED they got to get LED unit with around 5000lumen output to match the SON lamp brightness and then they most probably take the original reflector out to fit the LED lamps ito the head unit , so no wonder the estate looks darker now than it should.

20-04-2017 12:20am

They've started installing these sporadically in cork. Unfortunately they're using very harsh blue rich LEDs. Most roads just have a few interspersed with the old sodium lights, but the few roads that have been fully converted are horrible. Dazzling blue rich patches of light beneath each lamppost with relative darkness in between.

People are reaching the false conclusion that some light = good, therefore more light = better.

Beyond a certain point increasing brightness doesn't increase the eye's ability to spot obstacles as the pupils simply contract to keep out the excess light. So when you are immediately beneath one of these dazzlingly bright lights your pupil contracts and you can't see what's in the relative darkness ahead of you, a bit like driving into a dark tunnel on a sunny day.

Also blue rich light has been shown to decrease production of melatonin, the sleep hormone, making such blue LEDs totally inappropriate for residential areas.

And last but not least, the light pollution from an entire city of these things will completely wipe out the night sky. Even if not keenly interested in astronomy I think most people appreciate looking north at the plough on a summer's night or south at Orion on a winter's evening. Sadly, if the spread of these unnecessarily bright lights continues unchecked future generations will no longer be able to enjoy such sights.

Andy From Sligo · 20-04-2017 12:28am

Deleted User wrote: »

...Dazzling blue rich patches of light beneath each lamppost with relative darkness in between. ....

yes, thats it you have hit the nail on the head , exactly what is going on in the housing estate behind me. Bright sharp white light around the lighting column and underneath the street light and dark in between lamp posts , not an even spread of light you get with sodium lighting.

riffmongous · 20-04-2017 12:29am

Isn't blue light supposed to be bad for your eyes and body clock? I can't find any conclusive studies online though, anyone know?

Andy From Sligo · 20-04-2017 12:50am

I just found a street light head at 6000lm rated at 60w - a 70w SON-E bulb gives out 5700lm so not that much saving at all on energy. Sodium will have xenon, sodium and mercury in it though so not good for environment , you have to wait for sodium to "warm up" to get to full brightness and when SON lamp gets older it gets less efficient in amount of lumens/light it throws out. Although SON lasts for an awful long time LED's (in theory) should last for years and years .. but we are talking mass produced now these days and there have been even a few LED torches I have had where a couple of LED's in them have failed, not long after buying them.

Ubbquittious · 20-04-2017 12:56am

Andy From Sligo wrote: »

I just found a street light head at 6000lm rated at 60w - a 70w SON-E bulb gives out 5700lm so not that much saving at all on energy. Sodium will have xenon, sodium and mercury in it though so not good for environment , you have to wait for sodium to "warm up" to get to full brightness and when SON lamp gets older it gets less efficient in amount of lumens/light it throws out. Although SON lasts for an awful long time LED's (in theory) should last for years and years .. but we are talking mass produced now these days and there have been even a few LED torches I have had where a couple of LED's in them have failed, not long after buying them.

Some guy got a nice juicy lucrative contract with some councils for changing from Sodium to LED. Probably hoodwinked the council into thinking sodium lights are as bad as the old inferior incandescent lights.

I've had loads of LED bulbs fail. One packed up on me yesterday probably less than 2,000 hours on it

Think I'll go for one of these next, more reliable and nicer light
http://www.ebay.ca/itm/Falks-2703-Single-Wall-Propane-LP-Gas-Indoor-Light-NEW-Made-in-Canada/161917152136?_trksid=p2047675.c100005.m1851&_trkparms=aid%3D222007%26algo%3DSIC.MBE%26ao%3D1%26asc%3D20140620091118%26meid%3Db0e49c87f95b4faf8df0e61d92ce2b6c%26pid%3D100005%26rk%3D1%26rkt%3D5%26mehot%3Dpp%26sd%3D190818624955

Andy From Sligo · 20-04-2017 1:12am

Ubbquittious wrote: »

Some guy got a nice juicy lucrative contract with some councils for changing from Sodium to LED. Probably hoodwinked the council into thinking sodium lights are as bad as the old inferior incandescent lights.

I've had loads of LED bulbs fail. One packed up on me yesterday probably less than 2,000 hours on it

Think I'll go for one of these next, more reliable and nicer light
http://www.ebay.ca/itm/Falks-2703-Single-Wall-Propane-LP-Gas-Indoor-Light-NEW-Made-in-Canada/161917152136?_trksid=p2047675.c100005.m1851&_trkparms=aid%3D222007%26algo%3DSIC.MBE%26ao%3D1%26asc%3D20140620091118%26meid%3Db0e49c87f95b4faf8df0e61d92ce2b6c%26pid%3D100005%26rk%3D1%26rkt%3D5%26mehot%3Dpp%26sd%3D190818624955

- yes , lets all go back to gas lighting

I got few of these 1.50 LED light bulbs from dealz store - packed up after 3 or 4 months - made in china ... 5w=40w it said , no way was it comparable to same light output of a 40w conventional bulb

NIMAN · 20-04-2017 1:17am

I wonder where you'd stand re: failing LED bulbs?

I have changed out plenty of mine at home, and I always see the likes of "guaranteed to run 15,000hrs etc" on them.

If I have one fail after a year or two's use, can I go back and ask for a free replacement bulb? I would doubt the shop would entertain me at all.

Andy From Sligo · 20-04-2017 1:27am

Out of the whole lot - efficiency and environmental and energy issues put to one side for streetlights SON, SOX, LED, Fluorescent, mercury vapour my favourite choice has to be ........ tada!! - SOX low pressure sodium lamps (they start off red when they strike up and go to yellow/orange/amber at full brightness) .. the way road lighting is going you will be very hard pressed to find them soon they are or have been replaced by high pressure sodium SON (white when strike, go to orangey/pink colour at full brightness) and now with these bluish white LED lights now.

Theres just something I find so great about the old SOX low pressure lamps that say 'these were made for the roadside" - welcoming lovely warm glow, not glarey and great spread of light they give out.

LED Street Lights vs Sodium Streetlights

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