Detroit's LED Streetlights Are Going Dark After a Few Years (detroitnews.com) 271
Detroit's Public Lighting Authority has filed a federal lawsuit Monday against the manufacturer of nearly a third of the city's 65,000 streetlights, after it found that upward of 20,000 LED lights are "prematurely dimming and burning out" and putting the city's revitalization progress "in jeopardy." The city estimates a fix would cost millions. Detroit News reports: The issue was discovered last fall during routine surveys of the lighting system, and it's tied to defective units that were either "charred, burned, or cracked," according to a February letter from the lighting authority's law firm. The California-based manufacturer (Leotek Electronics USA) acknowledged in a December letter to the lighting authority that it had experienced "a higher number of reports of failures" in models dimming city streets, primarily in west side neighborhoods and a number of Detroit's major thoroughfares.
In the Dec. 17 letter, Leotek administrator Hy Nguyen said the company had determined "the problem is excessive heat that can burn the lens directly above the LED." "We apologize for the problem you have experienced and will work with you to correct the problems," Nguyen wrote. But in recent weeks, Leotek officials have gone silent, according to the lighting authority. A representative for Leotek did not respond Monday to requests for comment. The lighting project has been held up by Mayor Mike Duggan and others as an early success in the city's effort to restore basic services. Before the three-year, $185 million overhaul, about 40% of Detroit's 88,000 streetlights didn't work. The LED lights provided by Leotek were anticipated to last for at least a decade.
In the Dec. 17 letter, Leotek administrator Hy Nguyen said the company had determined "the problem is excessive heat that can burn the lens directly above the LED." "We apologize for the problem you have experienced and will work with you to correct the problems," Nguyen wrote. But in recent weeks, Leotek officials have gone silent, according to the lighting authority. A representative for Leotek did not respond Monday to requests for comment. The lighting project has been held up by Mayor Mike Duggan and others as an early success in the city's effort to restore basic services. Before the three-year, $185 million overhaul, about 40% of Detroit's 88,000 streetlights didn't work. The LED lights provided by Leotek were anticipated to last for at least a decade.
Quality (Score:5, Interesting)
And this has been an issue. Interestingly, my very first LED bulb, a positively ancient Phillips, has been working fine for so many years, I forgot how old it is (10 years, I think?). And the ones I bought a few years after- dimmable tracklight floods- still running strong. But the ones I bought last 5 years, of various brands, for a quarter of the price- half of them are dead or dying.
It is Deja-Vu. Went through that with the CFL's too- the early ones lasted for a decade or more, the later ones died quickly, no matter the brand.
So do keep this in mind when computing just how much "savings" you will get. I am still a HUGE LED fan, but it is hard to be optimistic when it seems impossible to find consistent quality ones anymore.... it is an annoying gamble.
Re: (Score:2)
Out of five original Cree lights I've bought, the glue holding on the glass globe has failed on three of them. The cheapest, crappiest color-changing lamps I've bought all still work.
Re: (Score:2)
>"Two years ago, bought many Cree bulbs from Hone Depot, only to have them fail within weeks. Cree sent replacements, but who wants all that hassle, just for a light bulb.""
Funny you (and Drinkypoo) should mention those. I, too, bought a slew of those. The original glass ones (one of the things I thought was so nice about them). And almost every one of them died within weeks to several months.Most started to flicker faster and faster. Others just "poof". A few had the glass separate from the base.
I
Re: (Score:2)
It's my understanding that the store itself is responsible for ensuring that you were sold a functioning product that was fit for use.
So, while it may not be worth shipping a light bulb to its manufacturer across the country over and over, you're allowed to say "screw that" and argue with the store until you've been illuminated for a reasonable timeframe.
Check local laws, etc.
Re: (Score:2)
I take a relative view of these bulbs. It says it lasts 15 years on the package. Even if it only lasts 1/3 of that, I'm still getting a bulb that lasts longer and is cheaper to run than an incandescent.
Re: (Score:2)
Will it last for 5 years though? I have my doubts. I've experienced a pretty high failure rate with my LED bulbs in the last couple of years. It's quite discouraging. The most common failure mode for my bulbs is they start blinking off, and eventually fail completely. When I take them apart, I often find burn marks on the board beneath the LED units. Most likely from the heat from the driver circuitry underneath. In many cases the individual LEDs still work, but the rectifier is burned out.
But traditio
Re: (Score:2)
I just replaced an old incandescent in my house. I didn't even know it was there. It's in the fixture above the staiway, so it's on often enough. Probably been in there since I moved into the house a decade ago. incandescent bulbs seem to last plenty long in my opinion. I don't think I have any more in the house. The LEDs and CFLs never got the life they claimed on the packaging. But they often have sales or government rebates on LED bulbs for $1 a piece, so I just pick up a few extra whenever I see the dea
Re: (Score:2)
In short yes if you design it for that, run loads and pick the outliers.
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
In my experience it's not a quality problem, it's a design problem. They are engineered with zero margin and pushed past the maximum ratings of all components to squeeze every bit of brightness out of the cheapest possible circuitry. I've seen this on many many dead LED light bulbs. It would be a simple matter of decreasing the current by 10 or 15% and the thing would probably last forever. Now, do you think manufacturers want them to last forever? Or would they prefer if they burn out after 1-2 years
Re: (Score:2)
Same thing happend to my LED backlit TV. The whole picture when completely dark although you could see the image if you shine a flashlight on it. Did some searching online to see how to fix the problem, and it seems to come up quite often. Ordered a whole set of LED strips (correct ones for the TV, not generic LED strips) from China for $50 and managed to fix my TV. Plus I have extra parts for when the next one dies. Apparrently it's a well known issue with certain TVs. they drive up the brighness to make
Re: (Score:2)
I put a meter or so of aluminum foil tape on the ceramic/plastic housing of the bulb, for heat sinking.
Sort of a pattern like this, taped all around the bulb housing. _||_||_||_||_
Vertical lines are parts of the tape folded into fins, horizontal lines are stuck to the housing.
It is not always the most esthetic solution and you should pay attention to NOT get any tape on the bulb screw...
But from my experience it has significantly extended the life of any 9-17 Watt LED bulb I have around the house.
7 Watt on
Re: (Score:2)
Well yes, choose wisely. I bought some Xpeoo LEDs that failed within a year. Replaced with Philips that have lasted for three years so far and still going.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
I've had problems with all cheap and medium priced LEDs.
I've also had issues with the very pricey Osram brand.
Philips are holding up so far.
What I noticed is it's not the LEDs that die. The current batch that is dying is of the corn cob variety and the flicker on and off but always all of them and often to full brightness. I believe very much that this is badly handled planned obsolescence and the eletronics are just crap. I bet if I opened one and provided a good power source they'd light up like a sunrise
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
The EU is looking at improving standards for testing LED bulbs to try to come up with better MTBF numbers, and to track dimming. The obvious thing to do is use the lowest MTBF of all the components, but that usually ignores the operating conditions, primarily heat. Or more specifically heat cycling.
10 years at 85C is likely to be optimistic for a bulb that goes through one or more heating and cooling cycles per day.
Re:Quality (Score:4, Insightful)
>"You will get precisely ZERO savings. As soon as everyone has them, the price of electricity will go up to compensate for the drop in demand."
There is a certain truth to this, but the alternative would be to NOT switch and watch your bill go up and up. So you are still saving, just in a strange way. It also ends up hurting you on HVAC and other electric appliances, because suddenly the increase in electric prices makes those hurt you more. So it shifts priorities around. Still, it is a good thing that, overall, energy consumption is being reduced.
Re: (Score:2)
Energy consumption is not being reduced. Increase in efficiency rarely leads to a decrease in resource usage. Its called the Jevons Paradox.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jevons_paradox
Re: (Score:2)
The big risk is with solar and batteries. As they become more popular and people are able to produce a significant proportion of their electrical energy themselves, the price of electricity and standing charges for network maintenance are going to increase a lot.
Then the people who can afford it the least will also be the ones who can't afford solar+batteries.
Re: (Score:2)
If you have a reversible fan you can make the light change from blue to red.
No Shit (Score:5, Interesting)
Anyone with basic electronics experience could have told you this would have been the result of moving to LED street lighting. Lets put a light source that requires a sophisticated LED driver with electrolytic caps into an enclosure that sits in the sun for 10-12 hours of the day and probably bakes at well over 120F for a part of that day.
LED lighting was the dumbest move in street lighting. It is not a significant electrical savings over the use of HPS. HPS bulbs last well over half a decade with the simple magnetic ballasts in them lasting the life of the fixture (decades). The environmental issues of the small amount of mercury in the bulbs was insignificant. Since it is power companies or city workers that maintain these lights it is easy to collect the bulbs for proper processing or recycling.
I already see the same problem described in this article with LED street lighting that has been deployed in my area as well. Sure the LEDs if driven properly have a lifetime significantly longer than HPS, but the driver circuits do not. Add on top all these things are made for the cheapest cost in China and you have street lights that fail 2-3 years into their life.
Re: (Score:2)
"baking' in 120 F container doesn't seem like much, especially when the light shouldn't be running in those circumstances, except in some sort of standyby/photocell mode waiting for night to fall. Automotive OEMs test for over 170 F degree external surface temps due to hot area/dessert sun loading, and internal temps can run higher. led interior lighting, tail lights and other lighting still survive the expected 10+ year life cycle. Even if the enclosure bakes at 150 F on a hot day in Detroit, the lighti
W00t!! (Score:2)
Long live HPS... or better still LPS...
I hate LED street lights or at least the blinding lowest bidder shit they are putting up around here.
Lumen per watt (Score:2, Informative)
High Pressure Sodium and Metal Halide HID lighting still has higher lumen per watt than LED. Ask any indoor pot farmer. LED requires less heat removal but then again they are more heat sensitive even though they give off less heat. HPS and MH are much hotter to the touch, but despite that they _still_ produce more lumen per watt.
HPS 1000w bulb gives off 150,000 lumen 150 lumen/watt
MH 1000w bulb gives off 100,000 lumen 100 lumen/watt
LED 30-90 lumen/watt
I have seen some LED claiming better efficiencies but w
Re: (Score:2)
Even so, LED streetlamps can get very HOT! Not as hot as the equivalent incandescent, but these aren't like your home bulbs and instead they're meant to be very bright and light up the street below them. We have some of these streetlights in our lab and I can see how they might lose reliability if the manufacturer doesn't manage the heat problem well.
Re: (Score:2)
You realize those two statements are contradictory? If a bulb has higher lumen per watt, that means a smaller percentage of the wattage becomes waste heat. Meaning it runs cooler for a given amount of light.
Re: (Score:2)
That would be the theory. However this is been observed and measured by many many people. I have seen how much heat a 1000 W grow light puts out. It’s damn hot. The fixtures are enclosed with 6in duct outlets on either side to push the air out of the grow room. Even the hood is very warm to the touch. That sort of ventilation is not needed with LED. Yet the math doesnt lie. Lm/w the HPS outperforms. Perhaps LED suffer some other form of inefficiency not manifested as heat whereas HPS is a purely r
Re: (Score:2)
All waste must become heat, otherwise it's not wasted. This is thermodynamics 101. What you are claiming is that some of the most fundamental laws of physics are wrong. I suggest you write a paper because if you are correct (which you are not) then there is a Nobel prize in it.
Re: (Score:2)
That is completely untrue. That is only true in purely resistive loads. Thats the point of a power factor. In thermodynamics heat is typically not considered ‘waste’. Its considered usable energy. Do you know what the term Latent Heat of Vaporization is? There is no measurable difference in temperature for water at 100C and pure steam. The energy required to go from liquid to gas cannot be measured with a thermometer. This is partly why nucleic boiling has better heat transfer properties than p
Re: (Score:2)
I find the LED streetlights in switzerland provide better contrast while not creating too much "glare". It looks much softer in a way. I very much appreciate that aspect.
Dim? (Score:2)
Did they remember to use the dimmable bulbs if the circuit has a dimmer switch installed?
Observation (Score:5, Informative)
There is a subtle "feature" in how most LED bulbs are designed. A single LED has a fantastic mean time between failure (MTBF). In LED lightbulbs the COB chips have large numbers of these LEDs wired in series That means that a single failure takes out the entire unit. The MTBF of a bulb is dramatically lower than the MTBF you'd expect from a single LED.
Combine this with race-to-the-bottom cost management on power supplies and thermal management and you get bulbs that are surprisingly short lived.
I still buy them though. I prefer blue light to yellow, and I despise the slow start of CFLs.
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
In street lamp luminaires LEDs are usually wired in parallel.
What a lot of papers like Gauging the Lifetime of an LED [digitallumens.si] would have you believe is that LEDs typically have much greater Lumen Maintenance Standard lifetimes than incandescent globes of 36-60,000 hours (where the LED degrades to 50% of its rated brightness), and that MTBFs can be ignored because they're much greater than that. What they fail to disclose is that these figures are arrived at for single 5W LEDs on high quality boards and heat sinks.
Ottawa got LED lighting to reduce GHG except (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
It's not poor critical thinking skills. It is the same problem as it has always been. Tribalism. Every issue gets boiled down into Group A vs Group B and the moment you espouse a view that is contrary to one group you get labeled into the other group so if you do not pick a side and believe in it like a religion you get screwed.
Yes, there are dissenters on all the sides, but that is the reason for the group... to keep them covered by the rest of the sheep that would only attack them if they get too noisy
Re: (Score:2)
Leotek can't replace the lights (Score:3)
This sucks for everyone. The people of Detroit but also any small company that is trying to win a large contract with a government agency. I've worked at many small companies that had amazing products. We would win all the initial pilot programs, spend a fortune on support for the pilots but at the end of the day no state or city government is going to buy 100 million dollars from a small company that has less than 2 million in assets. Our big multinational competitors could actually make a product that in one case would catch fire in peoples homes and we would still lose the bids.
Re: (Score:2)
They should have required Leotek to get insurance. The insurance company would want to see the bulbs properly tested and realistic lifespans given. And if it still went bad they would be paying out now.
What, no warranty? (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Leotek's in trouble. (Score:2)
They agreed to replace the defective lighting in Berkeley Back in February, but they seemed to have clammed up on Detroit. I think they sense they are in deep doo-doo. Perhaps they are skimping on material or manufacturing QA to milk these contracts for what they are worth. Replacing the defective fixtures will cost the company tens, if not hundreds of thousands of dollars.
https://www.dailycal.org/2019/... [dailycal.org]
flashing (Score:2)
Not just Detroit I think (Score:2)
Whenever I cross the pretty much brand new (2011) bridge across Lake Champlain from Crown Point, NY to Chimney Point, VT, sections of it's LED lighting are out of service. Not a big deal. Cars have headlights, and foot traffic at night in the middle of nowhere with subfreezing temperatures much of the year is, as you might imagine, minimal.
Re:"were anticipated"? (Score:4, Funny)
It could be worse. They might have installed Solar Freakin' Roadways.
Anticipating the need for light? (Score:2)
Story reminded me of another one of my weird ideas: Street lights that only turn on only when needed. This would also help with the problem of the story by not requiring most of the lights to be on most of the time, while saving electricity at the same time.
Different implementations are possible. For example, one could be linked to smartphones. That would be more effective in predicting your movements so the next streetlight could turn on before you get there. A different approach would put the onus on the
Re: (Score:2)
I don't know if I would call it "weird", but I get where you're going. I guess my take on it is that your subconscious knows something's wrong with it.
In many ways it's a great idea. The problem: if you lived on Maple street and someone was walking down the street, you'd be annoyed by the light show, if not the first day, then the 200th day. I guess if you could aim them, and have them all coordinated and gradually brighten and dim smoothly as someone was walking it would work out. But if you have many
Re: (Score:2)
How about a globe of spotlights? Like the compound eye of an insect, but shining the other way.
However, I'm not sure the distraction is that big a factor. For example, some people live in a place where car headlights flash in, but they figure out ways to deal with it. However that reminds me of the story about the early morning freight train that caused a local baby boom.
Re: (Score:3)
Your idea works good in warehouses, I mean the big gigantic warehouses. Most of them have long since moved to motion sensors based on that line of thought though. I think it was one of the GM warehouses that touted the idea when they dropped their electricity bill from $2m/mo to $300k/mo just on that. It's bad idea for cities, because street lights = visibility. Visibility reduces crime by a significant amount.
Re: (Score:2)
I'm not sure I'm following your reasoning. If the wannabe criminal is walking in a circle of light it seems likely he's going to be deterred from crime. However these days I think the cameras are becoming a bigger deterrent, and many of the cameras can see in the dark.
Re: (Score:2)
I'm not sure I'm following your reasoning. If the wannabe criminal is walking in a circle of light it seems likely he's going to be deterred from crime.
For one thing, there's no circle of light following them, so that really doesn't work. Visibility is the key point, not just the person but objects, structures, vehicles, etc are all a part of that. Simply: Target+desire+opportunity=crime. Visibility(seen or chance to be seen) reduces the chance of opportunity, it's easiest ways to lower crime rates.
However these days I think the cameras are becoming a bigger deterrent, and many of the cameras can see in the dark.
Cameras really aren't a big deterrent, if you factor them in with other methods like police/security on the ground, watchful eyes of the public and so on? Th
Re: (Score:2)
Re:Anticipating the need for light? (Score:4, Interesting)
Re: (Score:3)
It's a shame those scammers poisoned the well for the basic concept of solar paving tiles. The trial in the Netherlands worked pretty well, generating about 50% the energy that a comparable rooftop system would. The main issue discovered was to do with the durability of the top layer, but that's hardly insurmountable.
France has also had some decent results from a trial involving Colas.
Re:"were anticipated"? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: "were anticipated"? (Score:2, Informative)
Our office has roughly 170 Phillips led lights that I bought in 2013, and have been on almost 24/7 since then.
Not a single one has gone out, dimmed, or even flickered.
I'm not a scheming Democrat raking tax dollars into my bank account while purchasing poor quality products, however.
Re: "were anticipated"? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: CFL's (Score:3)
Re: CFL's (Score:4, Interesting)
The old ballast non-electronic fluorescent lamps could last decades in terms of continuous use. The electronic jobs? Couple of years, and the entire thing goes for a shit, sometimes less especially in high-heat environments. They're just as susceptible to the heat problem as CFL's and LED's. On top of that the smaller bulbs burn more quickly at both ends, guess those old guys knew what they were doing with a 3" tube vs 0.5" and their lifetime operation.
Re: (Score:3)
Hate to break it to you but it does not make sense to go for inductive ballasts for reliability. Electronic ballasts are gentler on tubes and cost less. You can still buy fittings with inductive ballasts they just aren't very popular outside of situations with specific problems such as EMC or vibration. In high-heat environments the electronic ballasts are better for the tube as well since they will create a gentler start.
They're just as susceptible to the heat problem as CFL's and LED's.
You didn't define "the heat problem". Interestingly if you look at "the heat problem"
Re: (Score:2)
Commercial used to be much better, but the failure rates on LEDs across the industry are miserable— over 2% post installation. Most of the failures are due to heat, either on the drivers or LED boards, but there are other significant failure modes as well.
The thing that pisses me off is seeing a 50% failure rate on the “smart” street light controllers that integrate motion sensor, communication, and dimming. Seeing street lights on during the day just pisses me off— it isn’t t
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
I work in the optoelectronics industry and I have waited for news like this to come. Semiconductor light sources are killed by heat, and most light fixture manufacturers don't have the capability to do proper thermal modeling. Software tools from ANSYS and COMSOL are really expensive.
On top of that I would add that the control of optoelectronics is nowwhere near CMOS. Silicon has indirect bandgap, so optoelectronics is done in GaAs, InP, GaN, depending on the required wavelength. The quality of the materia
Re: "were anticipated"? (Score:5, Informative)
Sodium lights also don't completely destroy your night vision the way bright blue-white LED lights do.
IMHO, one of the most dangerous installations of bright blue-white LED lights is at the Broward County (Florida) rest area on I-75/Alligator Alley (approx. 15 miles west of US-27, near mile marker 37). You go from driving across the Everglades through 15 miles of nearly total blackness to an area that's literally illuminated to stadium-lighting levels, spend 3-4 minutes driving through it, and then... get plunged right back into total blackness, right after your eyes have finally started adjusting to the bright blue-white light. Except now, you're going to be practically blind for the next 10 minutes, because accommodation to darkness is a lot slower than accommodation to bright light.
Re: (Score:3)
I like the way the lights are focused in my city. They illuminate the ground very nicely, but unless you are under them and look up, you pretty much don't even see the light itself, unlike the old street lights you can see a mile away.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
You're giving "them" WAY too much credit. Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity.
Re: (Score:3)
Broward County (Florida)
That's all I needed to see to know it was fucked. You should really run while you still can...
Re: (Score:2)
That's all I needed to see to know it was fucked. You should really run while you still can...
Drive along the 401 where they've done the same thing, truck drivers have been complaining about the 'ultra-white' LED's that have been rolled out as a replacement for a couple of years now. And having driven along the section that they're talking about, it's bad. Mostly because it plunges you right into darkness without any drop-off in intensity. Though it's not nearly as bad as some of the wide-angle reflectors used in some areas of Canada, especially in the winter. If you've never experienced them at
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
These problems are all easy to solve, unless it's Made in China.
I recall a story a while back, where a government based (think it was Canada) inspection agency was doing standard random pulls of electrical products from stores, to test them. Products Made in China had a high failure rate for a variety of tests, and when said companies were contacted?
They said they could send updated versions for testing. However, in every case those 'updated versions' never ended up on the shelves. And they just kept pre
Re: "were anticipated"? (Score:4, Informative)
However with LEDs the major problem source is the heat generated during regular run time. Most products drive LED elements on their maximum limit of current in order to get most lumens possible. This causes serious heat to be generated in a very small area. So you need to have properly designed and deployed heat sinks. If you do not, you would end up with the case in TFA.
What amazes me is that the producer can get away with not honouring their warranty. I guess in US they really have serious problems with customer protection. Although I have just skimmed TFA and might be missing some details, it seems that average failure time is something close to 4 years and warranty is given for 10 years in contract. So there should not be any question. Warranty means at the least the company would provide replacement equipment or equivalent, and if I wrote the contract I would add installation fee to that in any case. In some parts of civilised world companies are required to keep "equivalent equipment stock of commodity items" for 10 years by law, regardless of the contractual obligations. But I gather they stopped answering calls, nice one...
Re: (Score:2)
Since late '90s I've installed energy saving bulbs (different types over the years) where ever I lived (except for a couple of 2-month sublets), and I've never replaced one, except for a single first-gen IKEA LED bulb.
6 years in one place, almost 13 here, couple of years somewhere else.
Key is to not buy crap ones, off-brands/store brands seem to have issues from what I've read, but e.g. Phillips has been consistently good for me.
Quality of the electricity might also influence them; Lots can't handle dimming
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
The problem with Compact Fluorescent Bulbs seems to be that the marketing folks extrapolated the demonstrated longevity of long straight fluorescent tubes used in industrial and commercial applications to the tightly curved compact bulbs. Didn't work out. The CFLs run hotter. And maybe the power supplies don't last as long either. But whatever the reason, their lifetime seems to be substantially less than claimed.
Nothing against CFLs. They do use a lot less energy to generate light than old fashioned i
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
You would think the sun would be pretty bright from 18" away.
Re:"were anticipated"? (Score:5, Informative)
The justification for the spending was that street lighting reduces crime. There actually isn't much evidence for that [citylab.com]. Some studies have found a reduction in crime, but others have found no effect, or even found that better lighting increases some crimes.
If the goal was to reduce crime, the $185M likely could have been better spent.
Re: (Score:2)
I always thought street lights were there to make traffic more safe ...
Re: (Score:3)
I always thought street lights were there to make traffic more safe ...
There is little evidence to support that either.
Study finds street lighting has no effect on collisions [bmj.com].
Re: (Score:2)
Between 2000 and 2013 there were 161,049 night-time road traffic collisions, 19% of the total. Of these, 0.7% (1,202) occurred on roads where lights had been switched off, 4% (5,670) where part-time lighting was in place, 7% (11,634) where there was light dimming and 8% (12,423) were on roads with “white lighting”.
This could all just mean that the authorities simply made a very selective decision on which roads to perform which specific model. E.g the roads where they completely switched of the lights have probably very little traffic so the risk of collisions are low anyway. What is needed is to turn off the light on roads with very high traffic and see if the rate of collisions increase or not, would be quite impossible to get such a study accepted through the ethics board though
Re: (Score:2)
Interesting study but they only seem to have looked at vehicle to vehicle collisions, not vehicle to person.
There may not be enough statistical evidence because few people are crossing the road away from lit crossings late at night when the dimming/switch off happens.
Re: (Score:3)
Street lighting only reduces crime with other factors involved(police, neighborhood watch, random patrols, reducing primary factors for crime, etc). If you slap fancy streetlights up in asshole alley, it's still asshole alley. Nobody in their right mind would walk down M-3 and 7mi road in Detroit at 3am But they will on Gratiot Ave(M-3) and Broadway. What's the difference? Take a look on a map, it's easy to see.
The situation is similar to the "cameras everywhere" reasoning with CCTV in the UK to reduce
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Apparently, these guys never tried buying one of those bulbs for their house, only to discover that it only lasts for a fraction of the claimed service life
The issue for home users isn't the bulbs lasting for a fraction of the service life, it's the warranty conditions that end up costing you an amount equal to the costs of the bulb to make a claim. It actually makes more sense to just buy a new bulb and pretend they have no warranty. But I imagine the lights Detroit purchased are little bit more than $4 a pop.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re:"were anticipated"? (Score:5, Informative)
What the hell does that mean?
How is this any justification for $million purchase?
the lighting authority entered into a purchase agreement with Leotek in March 2014 for various wattages of its E-Cobra model LED units. The lighting authority paid $3.9 million to Leotek for 25,320 of the lights. The installation cost was about $5.2 million. The company, per its 10-year warranty, had said it would correct and replace any defects, according to the lighting authority.
It looks like the contract covered the bases when it comes to a number of requirements, and this is simply private enterprise not honouring the terms of the contract:
1. onshore assembly
2. supported operating lifetime of 10 years
3. contractor performs any replacement work during the warranty
By skimping on the original hardware delivery the contractor has created a massive problem for themselves. They're not responding now as everything will be going through lawyers, as the contractor attempts to weasel out of their obligations.
Re: (Score:2)
More like poor thermal design or cheapened out on the quality of the LED's
Since they're not just burning out the LED but also damaging the lens with heat, I'd say poor thermal design.
Re:It's Detroit. It's filthy. Ergo, dirty power. (Score:5, Informative)
Since they're not just burning out the LED but also damaging the lens with heat, I'd say poor thermal design.
Spot on. Detroit isn't the only city developing these problems either, there's several cities just across the border in Ontario that use the same brand of LED arrays for street lights and have the same problem. The city I live in around half of the street lights suffer from the exact same problem and they've started switching back to HPS aka sodium-vapor lamps aka yellow-orange glow of doom lamps, they've got thousands of them in storage and there's a backlog for the 10 year warranty replacements. So the choice is easy. Wait until it burns out, roll out a truck - do transformer and line maintenance at the same time and replace with a HPS lamp, file warranty claim on several thousand units at once, and replace them as the HPS lamps die ~7-10 years down the road - and if you have areas where they have the ye olde '70's circular dome lights, leave them until they do burn out since they've been working for ~50 years another few years isn't going to matter.
The other option is to simply let a street go dark. A couple of nearyby cities(Woodstock and Kitchener/Waterloo) did that in a couple of areas of town. Despite the general low-rate of crime, there was a huge spike in arson and vehicle break-ins where there were no lights. If anyone needs proof that CPTED(crime prevention through environmental design) is a hugely successful and viable options those are great examples.
Re:This is the same Detroit... (Score:4, Insightful)
And William Weld, R-Massachusetts, was the governor who signed the furlough program that released Willie Horton. WYFP. It's not like Republican mayors could have halted NAFTA or permanent normal trade relations with China.
Blaming NAFTA? (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Detroit is a border city. I'm pretty of all the cities in North America Detroit and Windsor benefited the most from NAFTA.
Neither Detroit or Windsor benefited from NAFTA. Swaths of border cities simply became industrial wasteland, companies who'd been there for decades would close-up shop, and move to Mexico. In the worst cases, heavily polluted land was left vacant, tied up in courts for years until the company that pissed off went bankrupt or was bought out, and the new ownership refused liability. But no, the border cities didn't. The cities that supported those industrial centers didn't either. The county I grew up in,
Re: (Score:2)
Your Are Correct Sir (Score:2)
Had the wrong Republican.
Thanks for playing Jumping to Conclusions (Score:2)
...The Bigot Edition.
Reasons for the decay of Detroit are many and well established [wikipedia.org] but they are easily summed up in one word - racism.
Starting from the anti-immigration policies (against those filthy Europeans from Normay [nps.gov]) which created workforce shortage just as the auto industry was taking off...
Continuing with Jim Crow laws in the South which created further incentive for blacks to move to Detroit...
Where they were met with redlining [wikipedia.org] which caused all the upper class and white collar white folk to live o
Re: (Score:2)
Because of Democrats notorious stance against nighttime illumination? Look out, I think your MAGA hat is showing.
Re: (Score:2)
The initialive is good though. LED streetlights save a lot of power, and thus they save a lot of money for the cities that use them. If done RIGHT they can last a long time as well. You can add smarts to turn them on at the right time and send back info when the light is about to die long before someone notices that it's burned out.
Detroit's problem is that they got stuck with a bad contractor who's trying to avoid fixing their own mess.
Re:I hope the same occurs elsewhere (Score:4, Interesting)
The initialive is good though. LED streetlights save a lot of power, and thus they save a lot of money for the cities that use them.
Not really, they save a bit, but not a lot. HPS lamps go comfortably over 100 lm/W.
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
LEDs should last damn near forever if they are cooled properly and not over driven.
Unfortunately in the world of bean counters, Smaller heat sinks are used, shitty drives that fail in a year are used, and they are over driven to one up the lumen output game.
This leads to lamps that fail in a year or two rather than a lamp that should last a generation at least.
Re: (Score:2)
That's not been our experience at all. We have been an all-LED household since mid 2015 when we moved back into our house after it was repaired for damage from the devastating Christchurch earthquake of 2011. My bedroom's main light, which was the first LED light bulb I tried, lasted a couple months shy of 5 years. We had a bulb fail a few weeks ago in our living room which is on for many hours a day - it lasted for about 3.5 years. We use Philips LED light bulbs for all but a few of our lights.
Re: (Score:2)
Dr. Chen H. Wu Founder and CEO, Leotek Dr. Wu has been developing technical and market solutions for LED based applications since 1973. As Founder and CEO of Leotek Electronics Corporation, he was responsible for identifying and developing emerging LED applications and the market for Leotek. He founded Leotek in 1993 and led his team through the design and development of many innovative and successful products. Leotek has now become the second largest LED traffic signal company in the world. Prior to founding Leotek, Chen Wu was Vice President of Advanced Technology (Taiwan) Corporation and Executive Vice President of Compound Semiconductors, Inc. in California. Dr. Wu is a member of IESNA (Illuminating Engineering Society, North America), IMSA (International Municipal Signal Association) and ITE (Institute of Transportation Engineers). He has authored numerous technical publications in the area of optoelectronics and holds 26 patents related to LED applications.
Re:"But we have a contract!!!" (Score:5, Insightful)
Any contract without a cancellation or non-delivery penalty clause is worthless. Even with a cast-iron contract, the company need only declare itself bankrupt and all its obligations disappear leaving you high and dry.
The only sensible way to work is to never put all your eggs in one basket, sign any exclusive contract whatsoever, and buy well when choosing products (which, for a project like this, I'd want to see their product still working from a, say, 5-year-old installation at one of their other customers).
Fact is, nobody gets this. It's all "sign it now, then it's someone else's problem". Especially with public services, we should make it illegal to sign any contract longer than a year, so that this stuff is reviewed annually and you can cut suppliers dead when their product / service fails to deliver.
I was involved in a print contract procurement procedure once, for a private school. Let me tell you, every print service company is a con artist. Every single one. Clauses left, right and centre with spurious charges (e.g. "toner delivery" charge that can increase with no limit), written-in price increases (including things like "We can raise it as much as we like after the first year, you're still tied for five years, and by the way we only need give you 30 days notice, and there's a massive cancellation charge if you cut the contract early"). Most of it was bordering on the illegal, but - after consulting with a specialist lawyer - apparently actually comes from a standard agreement used in the car-finance industries which has been tested in UK courts many times and found to be legal.
I honestly still do not understand the rationale for my employers to sign into a print service contract. They deliver for about 6 months and then it all turns to junk and the printers and photocopiers all stop working constantly. You can't deal with the manufacturers, you can't use other parts, you can't service much of it yourself, you can't order other toner, etc. Hell, we get charged GBP70 for a little pack of staples that could fit inside a closed fist.
And any large government, council, etc. procurement is even worse. They get lumbered with shite and don't care because they get their backhander, or even just because they feel important having put their signature to such a large contract. I've actually had people who were so enamoured with their own decision that all logic was defied in trying to cope with its downfalls rather than just admitting it was a mistake.
Solar panels is another one, at least in the UK. Rent out your roof, destroy your mortgage and home insurance, cost an absolute fortune to install and certify, for a set of panels that'll fail in a few years, never produce anywhere near the electricity promised, and the subsidies expire immediately so you're left with a bunch of ugly broken things on your roof doing nothing into perpetuity. I'm sure solar can work, but that's exactly what they prey on - people knowing you *can* make it work, and then selling them something that really *can't* work.
Also common in schools - "rectifiers", "power smoothers" and other terms for things that go on your electrical supply and "balance" and "lower your energy usage" by changing the voltage, etc. All to do incandescent lighting and things where everyone now has flourescent lighting and LEDs, so all they do is actually break more things playing about with voltage / current / frequency etc than they ever save. Though there are such things on AC networks as power factors and other things, generally speaking there's nothing you can do to a large site with varying power usage demands to save energy except switch stuff off. P=VI eventually no matter what you do.
While these long contracts and no penalties for failed delivery exist, there's nothing we can do. We need to move to a system where you can't cut-and-run or provide horrible service on a long-term basis because people are trapped in the contract.
Even at home, I've realised that a month-to-month contrac
Re: (Score:2)
Or just insist that there is an insurance policy included in the contract, so that if the company does go bust and is unable to fulfil its obligations then the insurance company pays out.