Don't know that much about these kind of lights but this was here when I bought the house, so its at least 25 years old, it has been working fine all these years I think it is a mercury Vapor. There is no switch except for the breaker it is attached to, that's the only thing I've checked so far the breaker is on. Because this is so old I don't know if it can be fixed or not, after I check and see if it has power to it then what do I check? Is it possible the bulb has failed and I can get away with just a new bulb? From what I read these lights have a ballast in them also. If I have to go with a new fixture I don't think I want a sodium light. The new fixtures and looked at online a lot of them do not have very good reviews. What do y'all think, should I go LED, Halide, CFL?
Waiting for ours to bite the dust. MV also, and I keep thinking I'd like to put up a new LED version. Any idea how much it takes to run that for a month? Ours is before the meter and we're charged a monthly fee.
I took the mercury vapor light off the pole and put a light on the front of the garage with a 100 watt equivalent LED bulb. Not sure if it's as bright as the MV light, but it's plenty bright for us. Used to have a high watt CFL in it which was so-so, but the led is much brighter and gives better light coverage.
Very likely it is the bulb or the eye. The eye is the switch on top that senses when to turn on (light/dark) and you can change those two items in about 30 seconds, but, for the cost you can dang near buy a whole new CFL security light. Those Mercury bulbs are usually 175W and the CFLs are ~75. I replaced mine with a complete new CFL assembly for ~$30 when they were on sale at our local farm supply store (Rural King of Ohio) Oh, and they make CFL replacement bulbs that screw right in to your existing light...too expensive and very poor durability...fortunately mine had a "lifetime" warranty and after the hardware replaced it for me 3 or 4 times they offered me a complete refund
Well, depends on your local KWH rate, ours is about $.10/KWH so if you figure 10 hrs per day run time x 175W that comes in around 53.5 KWHs/mo. So about $5.30 per mo. for us. Our local "rent a lights" like you have run $6-7 per mo. IIRC and they do all the maintenance so not a bad deal
Just curious. We get hit with a $12 fee every month for ours. Was wondering if it would be less to but an LED version and run that. I found 175 watt equivalent LED.
well, taking this light for example, http://www.amazon.com/Honeywell-Outdoor-Security-Light-Utility/dp/B00KVI3RME/ref=sr_1_10?ie=UTF8&qid=1441979659&sr=8-10&keywords=led security lights the light would pay for itself in ~6 mo or so and then the electric would run (at our local cost of $.10/KWH) would cost ~$1.26/mo. to run for 10 hours per day One thing to keep in mind is that the LED lights are more "directional" than MV bulbs...don't wash over the whole yard the same way
MV bulbs seem to be pretty inexpensive, HDR. This is the first one that popped up in a search.................http://www.lightingsupply.com/mercury-vapor-mv-bulbs.aspx
Yep... worked on many of those. Try a new bulb first. If that doesn't do it... then a new unit would probably be my choice as a replacement ballast might be as much $$ as a whole unit. I like LED units these days. But, the output of those MV lights is hard to match... would have to be sure an LED would give you the lighting coverage you want. Good luck.
