Here in the heart of the frozen midwest, where traffic signals have been
mass changed to LEDs, we have another problem. In the past, snow and ice
didn't accumulate in the traffic signal light housings stuck to the lens
unless there was a lot of wind in the right direction. Even then, the
signals were incandescent bulbs and kept it melted off.
Now with LEDs, that doesn't happen, and more wintertime maintenance is
required. Though it's still not as much as all the bulb-changing that used
to be necessary.
At 01:40 AM 2/23/2010 +0100, you wrote:
On Mon, Feb 22, 2010 at 05:56:43PM -0500, Curt @ Atari
Museum wrote:
Nice!!! Definitely should see those
nationwide, its ashame they
cost so much which I mean - they are LED's, they are a couple of cents
each, its this all profit gouging on Green Products???
A couple of cents? Yeah, for the small low power (<< 1 W) ones you use
for indicators in electronics or christmas tree lights. The high power
stuff is still rather pricey. While I've no doubt that the manufacturers
are milking every cent of profit they can, those _aren't_ that cheap or
easy to produce, otherwise every semiconductor fablet in china would
make them by the barrel.
Also, make no mistake, the "green" aspect takes a second (or third) seat
to more important aspects when deploying LED for things like traffic
signs and such. Especially for traffic sings, while the LED versions
most likely are significantly more expensive than incandescents, they
are big money savers in maintenance (getting someone up with a ladder to
change bulbs every once in a while ain't that cheap, especially in
places like Switzerland where there _is_ no dirt cheap labor) and
operating costs (power bills). The reduced power consumption of course
lends itself to being toutet as "greener" ;-)
Regards,
Alex.
--
"Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and
looks like work." -- Thomas A. Edison
-----
17. [Computing] At Group L, Stoffel oversees six first-rate programmers, a
managerial challenge roughly comparable to herding cats. --The Washington
Post Magazine, June 9, 1985
--... ...-- -.. . -. ----. --.- --.- -...
tpeters at
nospam.mixcom.com (remove "nospam") N9QQB (amateur radio)
"HEY YOU" (loud shouting) WEB:
http://www.mixcom.com/tpeters
43? 7' 17.2" N by 88? 6' 28.9" W, Elevation 815', Grid Square
EN53wc
WAN/LAN/Telcom Analyst, Tech Writer, MCP, CCNA, Registered Linux User 385531