The Lamp Room

I am not quite sure whats going on here but within the past year, both of my lanterns outside the 55w sox and the 70w son have both blown 2 photocells each. The photocells have been sent day burning each time. First of all i had a SELC 8480 20 lux photocell on my MI36 55w SOX lantern, that was brand new and went day burning just a few months later. Then i put a Monostar 2000 70 lux photocell on it and that went day burning after a few months as well. Thats now fitted with an S300 and has been ok so far.

Now onto my SON beta 79 on the front, first of all a night star failed on that and went day burning, i swapped that for a SELC part night that i pulled out as it didnt work one night, so i replaced that with a Thermal P3 photocell. That has failed this morning also and has gone day burning! I had a look inside and the detector LDR has burnt out? WTF?

What's your average voltage? I doubt that would be the problem though, they would build them to be fairly robust.

Average i think is around 247v. Just tested the thermal one now and its ok. Odd

Are all these cells your using what you get from the lighting crews?, they may have been removed for a reason?

As above, plus, with the general quality (or lack of) with most things these days, might just be bad luck!

Some have been off the crews but most ive used have been removed perfectly working from the led downgrades

How are your cells behaving today Dan?

They are fine now rich. The MI36 has a 20 lux green SS6 the Beta79 has a Monostar 2000 thats been on it nearly 3 years and is still ok, the sign light has a 55lux 20mm SS6 thats also been fine and the 18w bulkhead has a Microstar 2000 photocell since it went up in 2015 and has been fine. I guess i was prpbably just unlucky with the cells i was using

The most strange one was when me and kev both had the same 20 lux SELC8480s in use he had his on the Tempo and i had mine on the MI36 that was really odd because on the same day both mine and his failed i remember kev ringing me saying his 8480 had failed and me replying with, yes so has mine!

Did you ever consider having just one cell and a contactor combination to run all the outside lighting?, this is how my four run, (but with a Sangamo), instead of a cell, it’s just two parts to look after then?

Nah ive always loved my photocells. Never been too keen on timeocks lol