Property Lighting

Originally recorded August 8, 2019.
All the outdoor lighting on our property. Some of them are cool, some of them are just meh, others just plain work and do what you need them to. Besides the solar lights, I will not accept ANY kind of LED lighting here.
Some points in the video, I hit the start/stop button on the camera too quick, so that's why some of the audio is cutoff at the ends of some of the clips. Need to work on that.

[@conner0525]

That mercury vapor fixture looks like electripak, American electric lighting, ITT lighting and Thomas and Betts lighting of the design of the reflector lens and the bulb you zoomed into looks like Westinghouse Philips lifeguard lamp and it has longer skinny arc tube. And btw I found that fixture looks a lot like yours and found it at the pole barn and and my cousin took the pole down and seems to be good condition but unfortunately the ballast is quite noisy when I plug it in and tested it out but good thing it works perfectly and only thing I replaced was the the photocell it was ameritec photocell it was faded out from the weather for years and the light wouldn’t shut off during day time so I’ve replaced it with the new area lighting research bf-120 model and the bulb that came with my fixture is philips h39kb clear bulb it is very good quality it has some use on there!

[@lizboz]

Thanks for the info on that. I'm still trying to figure out why mine is having trouble wanting to start up on its own. I don't have a ladder tall enough to reach up there to try and see what the problem is, any suggestions would be helpful. It usually doesn't want to start up on the first try, but with enough persuasion, it finally gets going and it works just fine, doesn't shut off until the next time it gets light out again and shuts the photocell. Just starting it's the only problem. I want to try and fix whatever I can, you can't really get these fixtures anymore, and they'll outperform ANYTHING new today. I actually bought another fixture similar to it at a supply shop, but it doesn't have a photocell in it so I'll have to source one for it. And bulbs for it are checked off the list, I have 3 more replacement bulbs for those fixtures, they both take the same lamp type.

[@jaykay18]

This was an example of good intentions gone wrong. Your intentions were good, the camera just couldn't fully convey everything you could see, and there's no way to make that actually happen. Well, if the camera has manual controls, and you set it up on a tripod so there's no movement, and play with the settings for half an hour, maybe, but "ain't nobody got time for dat!" More bees please! Really gotta get rid of those nests up there. It's acting as insulation for the bulb causing it to run hotter than normal. The back CFL seems to do the trick. I know all about the bugs by the door. That's what I have cats for. No bug stands a chance in this house. The front--a preheat! That's just beyond awesome! Our old apartment had non-preheat fluorescents sort of along the same line as that. The landlord wanted to get rid of them and replace them with motion sensor lights, and I actually installed them as a gesture of good will. Mainly because I wanted the old fluorescent fixtures. I have one mounted over the rotary phone in the laundry. The original bulb passed away some time ago, and the other one is on its last legs. I can't find replacement bulbs for it, but I did find a brand new replacement fixture and bulb, that looks almost the same, so when the time comes I'll swap out the fixture. But man, a preheat! That's just purely awesome! 9:30 is bedtime? 11 is about the earliest I'll make it in to bed. But I don't like staying up much past 12. Then of course I only get 6 hours of sleep if I'm lucky so I'm up at 6, if not even 5 or sometimes 4. Those LED post lights on the deck don't seem to be worth much. Gee, I wonder why. I would have liked to see the LED rope lights on to see what they don't have to offer. The neon flicker bulbs in the windows are a nice touch.

[@lizboz]

Yeah, I know. The camera does have manual settings, which I actually used, but only for the clip of the neighbor's sodium light, since the camera didn't want to focus automatically on it. The manual brightness however is still not enough to see very dark places even at max. If I had a ladder tall enough, I would've already taken those nests out of the light. So I'll have to wait to run it again until I can take care of that. I have a cat as well, but she usually likes to stay outside at night, since she's an outdoor cat. Usually we just get the real annoying bugs with flyswatters. Yeah, I couldn't believe it either when I saw that it was a preheat fixture! I actually was able to get replacement bulbs for it a while back. The bulb that's in there now is a GE Hungary-made bulb. I don't if it's original or not, but it was there when we moved here. I actually had to fix an issue with the bulb when I was doing the swap for the front and back fixtures. One of the terminal pins on the bulb had come loose, so I had to take the bulb out, push the pin back into place as much as I could without damaging it, and then reinstall it. Works great now, I don't know for how much longer though. Yes! I remember seeing that fixture you have over your laundry room phone! I still wish we would've kept the old fluorescent light that was in the shop when we moved in. Pretty sure that had a big iron ballast on it. My dad has a trouble light that's preheat. Need to make a video on it. 9:30 was when I started the video, I don't think I finished it until about 11:00--there were some holdups toward the end. Bedtime for here is usually about 10:00 to 10:30 for my dad, I don't have an exact time I turn in, but usually before 1:00, unless I'm up editing videos. Next time I think of it, I'll show the rope lights. I think they're too bright and harsh to look at, especially at night. The neon bulbs are actually part of my room lights that I occasionally have on at night until I go to sleep. It's nothing blinky or flashy like Club Jay lights or anything like that, but sometimes it's just cool to have them on for the remainder of the time I'm still up. They only get turned on once in a while though, and I shut them off before I go to sleep. Might make a video!

[@jaykay18]

I'm wondering if a ladder not tall enough, but a long stick might be a better way to get those nests out. Yeah the fluorescent one I have has an issue, the covering over the bulb for whatever reason causes the bulb to stop working when it's screwed all the way in, I'm guessing there's a loose wire or something but it's not worth my time to try and fix, especially since it's nothing real special to begin with. But if I leave it slightly unscrewed, it works. Lately it's been turning on REALLY dim, and I think that's because it's freezing in the A/C, like I am. I've found that for whatever reason, bulbs placed in a preheat fixture don't have anywhere near the warmup time of other bulbs. I know all about staying up late editing videos. I made ELEVEN videos yesterday. My eyes were really starting to hurt after staring at the screen for hours, so I decided it was time to go to bed. I finished them up today, uploaded and archived. I really don't like when my eyes hurt from staring at the computer screen, that's bad news because it's such an integral part of my life. Now I've been staring at screens for over 35 years so I know about this pain all too well. The key is to not let it get to that point, which is why I take periodic breaks, but even so, you don't feel it coming on until you have it. Maybe your lights in your room are pretty cool, but I won't know until I see! My favorite light as a kid was that one I showed that's at the bar now, the one that looks like a flower. When I was really young, there was only a red, amber, and green LED, left, center, and right. One day my dad got this idea and borrowed it so he could have something to do at work on the weekend when it's slow, and it turned into the flower. But I remember many nights laying there trying to fall asleep looking at it. Many of the other lights I have down there were childhood lights also. They all have a special place, but I'm always on the search for new and different ones. And I have them. There will be videos on that!

[@lizboz]

Maybe, it has to be thin enough of course to reach in between the bulb and refractor cover. I don't have a stick long enough, but I'm sure I could find one easily. I was having an issue with mine after transferring it to the front. Initially the light didn't want to start up, but I found that if I take it out of the mounting brackets and hold it in certain positions, it would start and light up, but it wouldn't stay on unless I held it there in that position. I checked my wire connections, everything was fine, at least that I could see. I think dropping it on the ground must have jostled stuff inside and caused something to malfunction. Eventually, I got it to work mounted in the brackets and everything, and just left it. Worked fine since. Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't that the reason for the name "preheat"? Good advice on the staying up late thing. I try not to stay up that late if I can help it, and sometimes I take breaks as well. They say that staring at a computer screen for too long can put a strain on your eyes and brain, so I try to be careful about that. Yeah, I've seen that light. I don't have any custom made lights of my own yet, but I do have a couple lava lamps and an 18" blacklight as well as a 60 watt incandescent black bulb in a regular lamp stand without a shade. On my wall up high, there is a neon light sign that I made a while back. It's not the greatest setup, and it only spells out 3 words, which are the initials for my email name. And it's only battery powered, I want it to be AC powered. There is also an "up-light" fixture by the window that has a CFL in it, which is plugged into a switched outlet adapter. Got that used at Goodwill some time back--I forget how much it cost. One of the lights I'm searching for that I think is kinda cool is one made by Sunbeam. Apparently they used to make a plasma globe with a regular light bulb screw-base that you could just mount in a regular medium base socket. If I ever find one, that will likely replace the 60 watt black incandescent in there now, which will then go somewhere else. There was one on fleabay for I forget how much, but the base looked just like the old 2001 bulb I have now with the vent holes in it, except instead of white, it was black.

[@jaykay18]

Yeah dropping stuff isn't terribly conducive to it working well again. I dropped one of my lasers at Club Jay while remounting it, whilst trying to juggle the phone with xjoe81x talking my ear off about nothing for 3 hours. It still works, it's just noisy. I tried opening it, but wasn't successful and decided to leave it since it still works. If only I wasn't on the phone... Preheat really refers to the filaments at the end of the bulb. You can watch as they turn orange, being preheated. Essentially, they're just incandescent filaments. But they need to be preheated to strike the arc across the bulb. As for what I said about them not needing warmup time, I don't really think that seems to have any bearing on it. I think it has to do with the iron core ballast, instead of Chinamatronics running the show. A good dot of mercury in the bulb helps start it as well, but the Millennials ruined that because mercury poisoning, so they decreased the amount of mercury considerably. It was a tiny dot, about the size of a pencil point back in the day, now it's virtually microscopic. You used to be able to see the mercury in vintage bulbs. That early to bed, early to rise thing? Probably true. I have my health, I have my wealth, and I'm wise! The lights you do have are a GREAT start, and I'd be most interested in seeing them! Make a point to show the voltage of that battery powered one and I'll be sure to comment on that. Finding a way to power it may be easier than you think. I think I remember said plasma bulb, those were pretty rare.

[@lizboz]

Ah well, doo dah doo. That just prompted me to watch your video "Is This Some Sort Of Disease???". Laughed quite hard when that phone rang right after you said it would! OK yes, I understand now. A dot of mercury never hurt anyone of course, except for millennials apparently. Alright well I know the neon light takes two AA batteries, which is 3 volts altogether, but I guess you want to see what's actually coming in with a meter, yes?