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Mr. Luddite

On 2/7/2016 6:56 PM, wrote:
On Sun, 7 Feb 2016 17:12:11 -0500, "Mr. Luddite"
wrote:

I noticed something over the weekend that all you "southerners" don't
have to deal with.

Pretty much all traffic lights are now high output LEDs. Saves energy
and they last a long time, but there's a problem.

After a wind swept snow storm with heavy wet snow that then freezes like
we had Friday, the lights become completely covered and you can't see
which one is on.

The LED's aren't hot enough to melt the snow away like the old fashioned
incandescent types, so even 24 hours after the snow stopped flying you
still can't see which of the lights are lit at many intersections.
Causes quite a bit of confusion until people realize what the issue is.

I suppose the trick would be to coat the lenses with something snow
won't stick to.
If that doesn't work I guess is that thermostatically controlled
heater Don mentioned is the next step. This is not the first time I
heard this story. I am surprised someone hasn't fixed it. Must be
Bush's fault.

I was just reading about it. The correction is to add heaters on the
main lenses but it's an expensive process to convert them all. Some
don't have the supplied power or wiring to run heaters because they
were designed for low current, LED lights only.

A coating on the main lens isn't really practical. The wind driven wet
crap will stick to teflon with no problem and any coating that worked
would have to be routinely redone. Here's a typical LED traffic light
pretty much covered up:

http://tinyurl.com/grjpr6t

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