Found these news clips of Detroit's new cheap LED Lights having a fit on EOL.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0ZlvJljMybs + https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CAOZxP-ufTY
These are Cree LED Lights, Newmarket just finished upgrading our whole town to these things.

At least they were happy at first...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cfaid5nuMEs

LEDisease.

Maybe if they put in ACTUAL REAL lights, they wouldn't have that problem. They're putting up brand new 250 watt HPS all over my town. I'm so thankful that they're not LED's.

A couple of the LED lights installed at the Rockaway Mall were doing that same flickering.

I agree, they should have installed high pressure sodium lights. They are far more reliable. Or if they wanted white light, then they should have used ceramic metal halide.

Agreed. I hope this LED hogwash passes over soon. I'm getting THOROUGHLY sick and tired of this nonsense.

Replace those things NOW with new HPS lights!!!!Would be MUCH better!!!!--and really CHEAPER!!!Think LED streetlight tech needs to mature several more years!Or get ones like what we have at our transmitter site AEL.So far so good!The only LED lights I have seen that work right.

I doubt the problem has anything common with the light being LED's, this looks like lost Neutral problem within 3-phase or "120+120V" system or something very similar.
With HID's it would mean constant cycling like hell as well (however maybe slower), or even many fried ballasts, so way harder and longer time to fix.

With that they should shut the lights down until it gets fixed...

 And after they fix that they can put in some decent lights. I vote 250 watt HPS. And if they want to make the dark sky people happy, they need to use LPS.

That flashing is reminiscent of those cheep cob LEDs. We too have new 250w m250r2s going up each time an old mv light fails or the pole is knocked down. Why don't they use a simple core and coil transformer and a bridge rectifier/capacitor circuit instead of a complex circuit which has more components that can fail.

That flashing is reminiscent of those cheep cob LEDs. We too have new 250w m250r2s going up each time an old mv light fails or the pole is knocked down. Why don't they use a simple core and coil transformer and a bridge rectifier/capacitor circuit instead of a complex circuit which has more components that can fail.

But with that each lantern would flash completely independent on each other (what would sync them?), but here they are flashing in groups. That means the cause should affect many fixtures at once, at the same instant, so there is no way that failure could be within the fixtures...

I Googled "led streetlights are awful" and this is what I found. And this.

Yeah, the Illinois state fair grounds decided to replace perfectly good 400w ael 125 and other mh spotlights with those ugly tubular LEDs and spotlites, respectively, so pics of their failure are coming in like two weeks.

Could it be the new LED lights are controlled by a central photocell/timer unit and that is defective.Replace or adjust it and maybe their new LED lights may work properly.And as another member suggested-check to see if the primary voltage to each fixture is correct.It could be possible the linemen connected the fixtures phase to neutral instead of phase to phase.The primary voltage on most of the LED fixtures can be 100V-277V in the US.The ones installed here at work are that way.

Could it be the new LED lights are controlled by a central photocell/timer unit and that is defective.Replace or adjust it and maybe their new LED lights may work properly.And as another member suggested-check to see if the primary voltage to each fixture is correct.It could be possible the linemen connected the fixtures phase to neutral instead of phase to phase.The primary voltage on most of the LED fixtures can be 100V-277V in the US.The ones installed here at work are that way.

That would mean they would all flash at once. It seems like they are all having issues.

There is some sync between them, they are not exactly random, and not each at its own rate

As it looks, The LEDs were connected on a 120-0-120 circuit (or the like), 1/2 of them on Phase A and 1/2 on Phase B. Neutral got open, so now the 2 groups of LEDs are just in series, across 240V mains



Power is applied. The driver in each lantern charges its main capacitor

Due to some inequality (different number of lanterns on the 2 Phases, other loads present, ....), the initial inrush current in 1 group of LEDs - call it A, ends sooner then in B

Now lanterns A are lit and B are still charging, and still draw inrush current. The current pulls the Neutral towards Phase B, so the lanterns in group B see less voltage (down to 0) and in group A see more (up to 240). Suppose that the drivers are for wide input voltage range, so they dont get blown up when they get 240

Voltage on Phase B goes down to few 10's V, a voltage at which the drivers in the lanterns start cutting out and stop drawing current

As few of them cut out, the rest charge up faster and light up

Now on Phase A are several lit lanterns and in Phase B just a few (and others where the drivers are in "restart" mode), so now the lanterns on the A side pull the voltage low for them and start cutting out

Meanwhile the voltage on the B side is high, so more lanterns are restarting on the B side

Rinse and repeat.....



Additional possibility is related to the photocell. If the photocells are for 120V, they might cut in or out randomly when they get the wrong voltage..... and they will then fire up even more the "pulling the Neutral" mess

Being a joker here-if they aren't going to fix these lights----Get out the Donna Summer records,Bee Gees records and hang a disco ball under each light--INSTANT DISCO STREET PARTY!!!So sad Detroit spent all that money on these things--only to be rewarded with lights that don't work.At least the older HPS lights WORKED!!!!And didn't put out distracting flashing and glare!And--to top it off the probably don't have the money to replace these again.Is there some sort of warrantee with these lights that can be worked out with their manufactuerer?