It would be nice if manufacturers of lights used in traffic (street lights and head lights in particular) realized the nice LEDs give high quality light and the importance of high quality light (less glare, better vision etc…).
It seems they’re still stuck on output and efficiency figures…
Same goes for HID lights by the way.
It ought to be forbidden to use cool white head lights, especially in tiny headlight units with clear (not pebbled, ribbed or frosted) collimating lenses, reflectors and covering lenses.
I remember in the 80s and 90s the headlight units were large and diffused. Not blinding, no tint shift due to collimating lenses.
It was easy to estimate the distance between you crossing the street and the cars back then.
And all were warm white, 100CRI and R9100.
[quote=Jerommel]
Are you sure the Sodium lamps are just as efficient though?
[quote]
Yes, perhaps even better. And the spectrum that they put out is all useful, at least to humans.
The best High Pressure Sodium (HPS) lamps can deliver right around 100 lumens per watt, which at this point is only marginally lower efficiency then the best LED’s. Low Pressure Sodium is another matter entirely. If you can stand the color, because it is basically a monochromatic yellow, LPS can delivery over 200 lumens per watt in some lamps. There is however a significant difference in lifetime however, and LED’s are generally longer lived than HPS. The real question however is what is the longevity of the supporting electronics for the LED, and I suspect much of it will come up well short of the LED life expectancy. Generally HID ballast have very long life. There aren’t any active components in them, so if well designed, 20-30 years is not unrealistic. The problem with Electronics is that once you get past about 10 years, repairs become a real challenge because the parts they were built with no longer exist!
Go take a look at the lumens/watt numbers and maybe you will realize that 100lm/W is not “marginally lower than the best LEDs”
It used to be that, in France, all headlamps had to have yellow beams. Changing the bulbs over in the VW camper was a twice yearly ritual, every summer.
We used to bimble about in towns with streetlights, using only sidelights, which we only turned on after “lighting up time”, cyclists and pedestrians were much safer. You’d even get flashed at to remind you to turn the lights off, if you left them on in daylight. Main and dipped beam was only used on “the open road” We still have sidelights in the UK, but they are never used.
The design and materials used for French numberplates were unique also.
Then the EU happened, and very soon it became Germanic. With standards homogenised to suit the most car-crazy nation on the planet, no limits. Try a night drive on a busy unlimited Autobahn and learn real fear. And utter disregard for any road user not in possession of a really fast car (AKA weakling scum).
Just hope that you don’t meet a “Ghost Driver”, another peculiar Germanic tradition, and a popular way to commit suicide whilst destroying as many other lives as possible.
Massive insane high speed pile-ups in fog and other bad weather also a tradition, and it is now the season for them too.
Yeah, the yellow headlights were great!
Much less blinding and providing good vision even though it’s a loss in lumens (blue is blocked).
Streetlamps don’t seem to use “the best” LEDs, at least not around here. Some pretty disgusting ones actually. But it seems we will be stuck with them for many years to come, though I am already seeing individual LED failures only a couple of years after they were put in.
My nice sodium streetlamp lasted at least 30 years, with no maintenance, and I, and my neighbours were upset when when they were all ripped out and replaced one week.
Designed for maintainability though, the post now has a hinge in the middle, so a two person team can lower it without needing a cherry-picker. Thinking ahead ?
It is an insubstantial piece though, I had confidence chaining a motorbike to one of the old ones, not so much with these.
It used to be that you could crash a car into one, fast, and no damage was visible (to the lamp, not the car)
Talk is that they are all going to be replaced, again, this time with EV charging points included. Yet more jobs for the boys, perhaps I should just get with the programme and become one.
I’m not sure anymore if the latest developments in LED technology will ever spark basic common sense usage in larger user groups obviously benefiting. How many average artists displaying, photographers shooting or even professionals/blue collars ‘working’ seem to grasp lighting concepts helping them perform or monetize in any manner ‘today’ ….despite how easily deployed inexpensive quality lighting has become?
I guess that one has to have some kind of faith in their fellow man somehow looking around and realizing much of anything…which is beginning become somewhat of ‘a stretch’ unfortunately.
Fire in the first caveman’s hands seems a better bet.
For all “the best” LEDs, that we sophisticates cherish, there are so many more mundane ones. In, boring, use.
That’s not going to change. Nor can it.
So enjoy what you have discovered here, but don’t forget the vast majority of the ordinary un-enlightened, who just want to go to a local hardware shop and buy something fit-for-purpose, perhaps once every ten years, or as a gift, powered by something readily available, that doesn’t require an analysing charger and a multimeter to keep in prime condition, nor have an understanding of the possible consequences of making, or failing to recognise, a mistake. Nor an in-depth knowledge of available cells, their pros and cons, and available (or dodgy) supply routes from the persecuted land of far-far-away, who, basically, own you, already.
[quote=nottawhackjob]
At $20k per optics mold - not going to happen. 