on 12/24/2007 9:01 AM Pete C. said the following:
HeyBub wrote:

Tony Hwang wrote:

Hi,
Nearby town of Banff installed LED street lights with solar panels.
Very cool looking light and it is cool running, no bugs get attracted
kep them clean. Cost a lot initially but for the long run, it's
winner. LED bulbs now are expensive but with time the price will come
down. I have a few small ones in the house, they use couple Watts per
bulb.

My city, Houston, is retrofitting its traffic signals with LEDs. They cost
more initially, but since the bulbs won't have to be replaced for, what,
fifty years, they should recoup the expense fairly soon.


I doubt the 50 yr thing since I've see LED signals failing. The good
thing is that they have a "soft" failure mode, losing a few strings of
LEDs rather than the whole thing at once like the old incandescent
signals. The power savings of the LED vs. the 300W incandescents they
replace becomes significant when multiplied by all the active signals in
a city.


Can you imagine what it takes to change the bulb on an overhead traffic
signal?


About an hour, a bucket truck and a cop to handle traffic.


If you include the time it takes for the truck to get there, perhaps.
Most times, the changing of a traffic signal bulb takes about as much
time as a few regular cycles of the light.
Take it from someone who used to have to handle traffic while the change
was done.

--

Bill
In Hamptonburgh, NY
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