Good job, Adam! This is a very nice review which debunks all the LED "flatearth"-like comments that are unfortunately endemic on this site.

Good job, Adam! This is a very nice review which debunks all the LED "flatearth"-like comments that are unfortunately endemic on this site.

I've never tried to deny that I don't like LED street lights. However, that's not my point here. The fact remains that none of the LED fixtures I have ever seen in the UK have been anything else other than absolutely awful in terms of (a) colour temperature, (b) physical construction, (c) light distribution and (d) reliability. Every single one looks terrible and is utterly useless for its intended purpose.

Maybe that's coloured my judgement, I don't know. There are probably good, reliable LED fixtures out there, but I have yet to see one anywhere that I have been.

It's not about what you like or not, it's about the reality of the LED technology. It's not because your municipality installs only the cheapest and worst lighting possible and that you don't like it that it means that LEDs is bad in general. Adam's report is proof that this silly generalization is simply wrong. There are good and reliable LED systems out there.

Lug Lugsan2?

Thanks for the link. Don't know. Edmund Ironside's suggestion with a retrofit module makes a lot of sense.

Good job, Adam! This is a very nice review which debunks all the LED "flatearth"-like comments that are unfortunately endemic on this site.

Thanks, Max. This thread is just a truthful realistic report on how six different LED lantern brands perform after 10 years of use with a couple of admitted failures, some greening out but quite good results for a 2009 technology.
I know that Mr. Positive will continue to spend his days by rambling and searching for failed Yaguno/Chiguno/Nusko/whatever LED lights to post and repost them here and strengthen his club in the belief that all LEDs are a complete crap. Because an LED with three failed diodes (out of 30) is EOLED while a greened out poor old mercury lamp giving off 1/10 of its rated luminous flux is a champion.

Colour temperature is a personal preference. Those who love SOX colour would never like cool white light. For me, who grew up on old MBFU street lighting with CCT clearly over 4000K, cool white LED lighting looks better than HPS or warm white LED.
For the light distribution, check out this. Some would probably find those lanterns glary if they looked directly at them from a short distance (that's not what most people do, it's LG member's obsession) but the ground is lit more than sufficiently and very evenly.

It's not about what you like or not, it's about the reality of the LED technology. It's not because your municipality installs only the cheapest and worst lighting possible and that you don't like it that it means that LEDs is bad in general. Adam's report is proof that this silly generalization is simply wrong. There are good and reliable LED systems out there.

I'm sure there are. But not here. And even if I loved LED lighting, the street lamps here would still be crap.

I'm sure there are. But not here. And even if I loved LED lighting, the street lamps here would still be crap.

What if they installed amber LEDs in 589nm~ instead of the cool white they typically use? Will they still be crap?

What if they installed amber LEDs in 589nm~ instead of the cool white they typically use? Will they still be crap?

Colour temperature is only part of it. The optics of the fixtures here is non-existent, they are simply flat panels of LED's. If they had fitted fixtures of a quality that put the light where it was needed and not scattered all over the place, then possibly I might not be so annoyed. But while the selection of fixtures is in the hands of accountants rather than lighting engineers, then it's a moot point, as it will never happen.

I would still like to know why our entire street, which had perfectly serviceable HPS lamps with years of life left in them, were replaced en masse with the cheapest fixtures they could find. As I said, I do not feel safe out after dark any more, and that is not an exaggeration.

Colour temperature is only part of it. The optics of the fixtures here is non-existent, they are simply flat panels of LED's. If they had fitted fixtures of a quality that put the light where it was needed and not scattered all over the place, then possibly I might not be so annoyed. But while the selection of fixtures is in the hands of accountants rather than lighting engineers, then it's a moot point, as it will never happen.

I would still like to know why our entire street, which had perfectly serviceable HPS lamps with years of life left in them, were replaced en masse with the cheapest fixtures they could find. As I said, I do not feel safe out after dark any more, and that is not an exaggeration.

I noticed that the trend with residential street lighting when it comes to LED is lower brightness than the old fixtures they replaced. I guess that's one way to save lots of money in energy costs, but I prefer being able to see the sidewalk along with the road.

I noticed that the trend with residential street lighting when it comes to LED is lower brightness than the old fixtures they replaced. I guess that's one way to save lots of money in energy costs, but I prefer being able to see the sidewalk along with the road.

Exactly, it's getting to the point where we are afraid to go out when it gets dark, and where we are at this time of the year that's about half past four in the afternoon.!! 

Morning Adam, I wish I’d have done something similar here, you have been very precise with your observations and drawn some excellent conclusions!  
Although I can tell you about performance of LED street lighting here, I don’t have any installation dates to pinpoint the very first ones, other than from memory!

Using our town, and my direct neighbouring one where I work as an example, the first large scale LED street lighting installation here was in our neighbouring town of Winsford, and took form of over 50 Holophane Factor Large, this is the exact date that I don’t have, but from memory it’s now well over six years old.
As the road their on is my drive to work, I have been able to monitor them, and every one is still in perfect working order to the day they were installed.

I think our municipalitie, (Cheshire East Council), used this as a starting point as it was a stand alone installation for a few years before anything else got done. The next installation was in my hometown, but using Urbis’s Ampera, it only took a couple of years for a few of them to fail, and some fill up with water, until the Ampera ceased to be used for new installations!
The next huge installation was the total wipeout of LPS lamps in our town to Philips’s Uni-Street LED lanterns, this only took 2 months from December 2017 to February 2018 for a 100% change over to LED street lighting!
The Uni-Street has been a wise choice here, and are a stylish and reliable lantern as you would expect from Philips, made with quality like your observations in your area.

To conclude, unsurprisingly Cheshire East have stayed with the two quality manufacturers, Holophane and Philips for all new installations here now, and apart from the odd one or two ‘odd balls’ it’s rare to see any LED lanterns around me that aren’t Holophane or Philips made.  

When done correctly, LED is a great choice. However, it seems that there are many dishonest distributors and installers out there who do shady business to get sales. I was working at a large church some years back which has a parking lot with ~40 poles with two 400w MH shoeboxes each. They got a quote for LED since many lamps were EOL. I looked it over for them and they insisted the shoeboxes were 1000w MH! Furthermore, their quote had ONE 150W LED shoebox to replace two “1000w” lanterns! It doesn’t stop there either, in the estimated ROI/energy cost comparison they rated the KWh costs 20% higher than they actually pay AND the on time higher than they actually run to get the ROI under two years. I calculated the proper actual cost with their lantern and it was more like 8 years to break even! Not to mention ONE 150w lantern is not enough delivered luminance to replace TWO 400w MH. So the actual costs to provide the proper delivered luminance higher than that vs re-lamping. Re-lamping with CDM 330 lamps would break even in 1.5 years plus energy savings. Worst part is the people who make the decisions and write the checks on this don’t know enough to see the wool being pulled over their eyes. I had to be the one to push back against the vendor with facts since they insisted their numbers were correct.

Moral of the story is I think the complaint with LED isn’t the tech itself, it’s all the swindling that goes with it along with the installers plus everything lighting manufacturing closing in the west and being shipped to CHINA.

Correct!, I often wonder if all the old lamp plants here would have remained open, and concentrated on making LED lamps with the same commitment and research as they gave HID lighting over all those years, what sort of quality semiconductor lighting would be today.
I don’t blame the Chinese either for the techs bad press, quality Chinese manufacturers like Yankon that DO make good lamps, and are long established in the lamp industry in China are being under cut and undermined by copycat tat merchants in the same country who just want to make a quick profit from a far inferior product.

Sadly this cheap merchandise is very tempting for far too many of us idiot westerners! resulting in bad products used both in the home and for municipalities use, which in turn give LED tech a bad name!! it all depends on the wise choice of the consumer at the end of the day.
As for LED street lighting, I’m glad our council made the right choice with Holophane and Philips  

Hello Adam,
Nice that you reported back about those LEDs. You observations are similar to mine. We also got in France much LED lighting in the last years, mainly by Philips, as it matches the older Lanterns. In the Philips Modell I never observed a Fail in these years to. The Light distribution is nice too.

I observe fails only on the first generations of Philips/ Indal and iGuzzini LED lanterns. The current models later than 2015 are doing fine so far.