Sad to think these have been replaced with LED by now. On the upside, my nearest London Borough that is still somewhat predominantly SOX is Sutton. Not only that, but this borough has the newest stock of concrete columns and the largest variety of SOX lanterns, ranging from CU Phosco, GEC and even Philips. Most of Sutton’s SOX lanterns are only found on side streets, though it’s better than just having LED.
I've been doing a LOT of driving in the past week to photograph new Survivors, and it's been interesting to compare the general lighting in different areas - some places have very few (if any) LED-lit streets even now, with residential SOX still being in abundance here and there!
Hate to break it, but Sutton have recently just started culling their SOX lanterns, mainly the examples on concrete columns as the council aims to have most concretes removed. This sadly marks the end of the GEC Z9454s since they were mostly installed exclusively on the concretes. However, the SOX lanterns on steel columns are safe for now. The new LED replacements are Philips ClearWay gen2s and Urbis Axia 3 Evos.
RIP Lynda Baron. Obviously this episode was my favourite, probably helping spawn my interest in lighting which turned into a small lantern collection- in hindsight, this episode is probably why I like Hockeystick columns so much!
This is one of two things that sparked my interest in electrical! i remeber watching this when i was about 5 being mesmorised by the orange light i then watched the old 90w sox near my window turn on (sadly its been replaced by a crapppy LED) if it was not for this then i would have a very different life!
The weird thing is that I thought that I remembered a street lighting episode, specifically because of Auntie Mabel walking into the bag of rubbish in the dark, but for a while, I thought that it must have been wishful thinking, only then to discover it on a VHS cassette!
Absolutely - I hope that her first words when she reached "upstairs" were, "Hello, me dears!" - sadly, her "time to fly" has now arrived. As you say, the great man could probably do with some help to keep the lights lit! Love you, Lynda, and thanks for making sewage so fascinating for younger me (that was my first Come Outside episode)!
The weird thing is that I thought that I could remember watching an episode about street lighting, back in my rather younger years, but couldn't be certain; it turns out that, for once, my memory wasn't playing tricks on me!
I've thought the same - it's a shame that there aren't any road names visible! I believe that the series tended to be filmed around Harrow / Middlesex, so anyone with local knowledge may recognise the road.
Indeed; the episode first aired in February 1997, when the idea of LED street lighting seemed as preposterous as someone deciding to discontinue mercury lamp production did! A modern re-telling of the episode would be rather boring by my reckoning; not least because of the amount of signs and cones the operative would have to put out just to repair the light on such a quiet, country lane these days, would take up much of the programme!
I noticed all that too. I'm guessing that the part where the man was repairing the light, was filmed at a different time and also at different streetlight because they would have needed to use 2 streetlights in the filming, one that "wasn't working" and one that was working. It seems a bit silly for the repair man to go up and put a faulty bulb in one streetlight, plus SOX lamps flicker red when they are failed.
That's especially the case with lamps on electronic gear or when they are in a circuit where the ignitor is capable of detecting a faulty lamp (most Philips ignitors have this ability) - the lamp will still try to start when power is applied, but will then extinguish a few seconds later, and will remain unlit until the circuit is powered down and then back up again.
I watched this episode last year and thought that the RTE p42 sensor was very quick to turn on and off, but after wiring one up it is interesting that it indeed does turn on and off within a few seconds on my Thorn Beta 5. Also I wonder why dave didn’t use the test switch on the 2 part cell in the base to check the lamp was faulty as that may have been easier.
I've never had a 'quick' P42; they always seem to take about a minute after the detector is covered (or uncovered) for the cell to turn on or off! I suppose that the switch method wasn't discussed in case it encouraged children to go broddling around in column bases - the lure of being able to turn a street light on would be too much for some (me) to resist!
@@meganconnell6853 LED lanterns may be “better for the environment” but what about the perfectly working lanterns that are being scrapped and sent to landfill?
Hi Mike. I was wondering if you knew how to wire up a Philips L4135 sox 180 watt ballast as I have one but have no idea how to wire the component up. Any links or diagrams of how to wire this up would be very appreciated!
Hmm...I never seem to have drawn a diagram for one of those - I need to make amends there! In the meantime, I'll talk you through it... Looking left to right, the Live In connects into the first terminal, then (assuming that you're on a 240 V supply) ignore the next two and connect the Neutral into terminal 4, a 20 Microfarad 300 V (not the standard 240 V type) capacitor into 5 and 6, and then the lamp connections in 7 and 8 (and, of course, the earth into the separate terminal to the right of the main strip). The capacitor MUST be connected with this ballast type, incidentally; I'm not quite certain as to why this is, but I think that it's to do with the lamp ignition circuit.
@@StreetLightOnline ah brilliant. Thanks very much for this. It’s interesting to me that no Ignitor is used but I guess it may be built into the rather heavy ballast I assume. This all makes good sense now. I will have a look at the diagrams now. A capacitor is on order at the correct voltage and microfarads. When working I will try to remember to reply and send the images of the working Sox lamp 👍🏼
No problem! Yeah, in a leak transformer, there isn't a separate ignitor, and you're right - they are very heavy objects! You can always tell a column that has a leak transformer in the base on damp mornings, as there's a dry patch around the column at the position where the transformer is positioned - the effect is more obvious on concrete columns, which act a bit like a storage heater, with the aggregate heated from within. I look forward to seeing the working lamp - wiring up an L4135 was the first time that I received an electric shock, would you believe - I'd forgotten to switch off the supply but remembered very quickly once I touched the live wire!
@@StreetLightOnline ah yes. There’s some GEC 135 watt Sox lantern here in bolsover and many more other gems, I would quickly add that the top post GEC Z5640 lanterns in the high street are still there and planning on rescuing all 6 of them. I believe the collum bases do actually have a dry patch on aswell, which always mate me interested to why but now I know so thanks for that bit of interesting information. The ballasts ate very heavy and incredibly interesting objects to acquire. I will hopefully avoid getting an electrical shock from this unit as I’ve already had 2 in the past. The first from a Thorn Beta 5 where one wire out of the Ignitor was bare and was not connected to the capacitor, therefore made the canopy live too! After that I realised how useful a terminal block can be! The other was when I started to unscrew a terminal block and the mains was connected, hopefully that thought me a lesson there to ensure the plug is disconnected from the wall next time!
I know the area of where the lamp post in this is,its in the hillingdon borough of london near the hillingdon trail as you can see the sign on the lamp post for it, the collumn will most likely still be there but unfortunately the lantern will now be a philips unistreet.
I've just spent far too much time on Google satellite images trying to locate the road, but everywhere around the Hillingdon Trail is too built-up, and it's not as if the houses have been built since the programme was made, as they're all an older design...that'll bug me until I find the exact location now!
@@StreetLightOnline it’s hill end road in harefield, it’s the lamp post with the brown Hillingdon trail sign on it, it’s best use the desk top version and use 2009 footage as there’s a lot more signs been added to the column, but it’s definitely the one
By jingo, you're right - the trees have grown somewhat since then! I think that another column must have been used for the close-up shots, as the Beta 5 on that is newer (if not brand new at the time), and features a shallow bowl, whereas the one in all of the long shots is deep-bowled.
@@StreetLightOnline Yes, I remember spotting the fact that the close up shots showed a newer Beta 5, but the longer shots were clearly of an older Beta 5. The scene where they're up changing the bulb must have been a different light. On Google maps, if you go further down the road towards Springwell Lane (change the street view image year to around 2016 or less) you can see there are columns with the newer bets 5's on top. So, there must have been a reason for them not to show the same streetlight throughout filming, although it doesn't make a lot of sense to me why they did that.
If you look at the van an the guys t-shirt you can see the councils logo, it’s not harefield or Middlesex because they have a different logo. It looks very similar to south Staffordshire’s logo, so I was thinking it could have been filmed there and maybe they’ve just updated it a bit. Wether anyone Says that’s it’s gone or there still no one knows until the council is established.
@StreetLightOnline someone had to say it I love Sox. I’m very thankful that I still have sox on my road in April 2020 along with a bit of HPS here. Who knows how long it will be before the life of all the lanterns come to the end of their life on my road. Still I will probably see if I can get them of the council to give them to me.
I hope that you're lucky in that conquest! The last three MI 26s on my estate have bitten the dust, as of this week - this time last year, those on my street had about a week left before they were replaced.
StreetLightOnline we still have a few phosco P226 lanterns which I don’t know if you have any on your collection so when they are replaced they may be some interest to you
The Beta 5 lasted for longer than I thought that it would! The episode wouldn't be able to be re-made these days, as of course, LED lanterns NEVER fail, and so there wouldn't be a fault to report..!
The nostalgia has me on the brink of tears
Sad to think these have been replaced with LED by now. On the upside, my nearest London Borough that is still somewhat predominantly SOX is Sutton. Not only that, but this borough has the newest stock of concrete columns and the largest variety of SOX lanterns, ranging from CU Phosco, GEC and even Philips. Most of Sutton’s SOX lanterns are only found on side streets, though it’s better than just having LED.
I've been doing a LOT of driving in the past week to photograph new Survivors, and it's been interesting to compare the general lighting in different areas - some places have very few (if any) LED-lit streets even now, with residential SOX still being in abundance here and there!
Hate to break it, but Sutton have recently just started culling their SOX lanterns, mainly the examples on concrete columns as the council aims to have most concretes removed. This sadly marks the end of the GEC Z9454s since they were mostly installed exclusively on the concretes. However, the SOX lanterns on steel columns are safe for now. The new LED replacements are Philips ClearWay gen2s and Urbis Axia 3 Evos.
A rather inevitable pity - still, that's good going to have kept the SOX operating some five years after Philips stopped producing the lamps!
I miss old street lights, there’s no orange ones in Scotland anymore 😢
I think that there are a few here and there, but you're right; numbers will have reduced vastly in recent times!
I live in Glasgow and yes numbers are significantly reducing but theres still many Sox and HPS lanterns all around
RIP Lynda Baron. Obviously this episode was my favourite, probably helping spawn my interest in lighting which turned into a small lantern collection- in hindsight, this episode is probably why I like Hockeystick columns so much!
Loved this show, brings back so many childhood memories
This is one of two things that sparked my interest in electrical! i remeber watching this when i was about 5 being mesmorised by the orange light i then watched the old 90w sox near my window turn on (sadly its been replaced by a crapppy LED) if it was not for this then i would have a very different life!
The weird thing is that I thought that I remembered a street lighting episode, specifically because of Auntie Mabel walking into the bag of rubbish in the dark, but for a while, I thought that it must have been wishful thinking, only then to discover it on a VHS cassette!
@@StreetLightOnline Haha how funny
Lynda Barron, aka Auntie Mabel passed away today aged 82. RIP, fly high with Pippin and keep them SOX glowing, Jeremy will be up there to assist.
Absolutely - I hope that her first words when she reached "upstairs" were, "Hello, me dears!" - sadly, her "time to fly" has now arrived. As you say, the great man could probably do with some help to keep the lights lit! Love you, Lynda, and thanks for making sewage so fascinating for younger me (that was my first Come Outside episode)!
RIP Lyna Baron she’ll be greatly missed, I’m still crying lol
I’d love to know where her aunty Mabel’s house is I’ve always thought it was cozy
This one is better than the JoceWhizz YTP
I never knew this programme existed many thanks for sharing funny enough photocells are one of my interests
The weird thing is that I thought that I could remember watching an episode about street lighting, back in my rather younger years, but couldn't be certain; it turns out that, for once, my memory wasn't playing tricks on me!
This is like a street light council / Mary Poppins crossover event!
I wonder how Dave (if that's his real name) is doing these days. Would be interesting to hear his stories of them filming come outside with him!
I wonder if he still has the ponytail!
I miss this show
0:36 some UK towns shut their lights off now at 1AM.
Or earlier - some parishes in Derbyshire (and elsewhere) see some lights extinguished after midnight.
A bi-product of their increased power consumption I'd assume.
Where I live, they dim the led lights from midnight to 5 am
The LED streetlights in my area stay on for the whole night without any dimming process.
Wonder if that street light is still there
I've thought the same - it's a shame that there aren't any road names visible! I believe that the series tended to be filmed around Harrow / Middlesex, so anyone with local knowledge may recognise the road.
StreetLightOnline The lamp post was removed years ago, that whole road is LED now.
well, this is clearly get on a bit as we rarely see mercury anymore, that post top shot at the beginning was nice!
Indeed; the episode first aired in February 1997, when the idea of LED street lighting seemed as preposterous as someone deciding to discontinue mercury lamp production did! A modern re-telling of the episode would be rather boring by my reckoning; not least because of the amount of signs and cones the operative would have to put out just to repair the light on such a quiet, country lane these days, would take up much of the programme!
StreetLightOnline i am a fan of all types of street lighting but led isnt exactly one of them sadly 😶
I bet 99.9% that All of the lampposts in this video have been replaced with those ugly glowing LEDs, I bet either CU Phosco P852s or Urbis axias
Unfortunately the have, there philips unistreets.
I noticed all that too.
I'm guessing that the part where the man was repairing the light, was filmed at a different time and also at different streetlight because they would have needed to use 2 streetlights in the filming, one that "wasn't working" and one that was working. It seems a bit silly for the repair man to go up and put a faulty bulb in one streetlight, plus SOX lamps flicker red when they are failed.
the failure modes of SOX lamps go far beyond flickering red. Sometimes the failure mode is just no light.
That's especially the case with lamps on electronic gear or when they are in a circuit where the ignitor is capable of detecting a faulty lamp (most Philips ignitors have this ability) - the lamp will still try to start when power is applied, but will then extinguish a few seconds later, and will remain unlit until the circuit is powered down and then back up again.
I watched this episode last year and thought that the RTE p42 sensor was very quick to turn on and off, but after wiring one up it is interesting that it indeed does turn on and off within a few seconds on my Thorn Beta 5. Also I wonder why dave didn’t use the test switch on the 2 part cell in the base to check the lamp was faulty as that may have been easier.
I've never had a 'quick' P42; they always seem to take about a minute after the detector is covered (or uncovered) for the cell to turn on or off! I suppose that the switch method wasn't discussed in case it encouraged children to go broddling around in column bases - the lure of being able to turn a street light on would be too much for some (me) to resist!
The new LED street lights are awful, the light they give off is too harsh and bright, can't see a bloody thing in the sky now.
my town is at it to replace all old street lamps (every street lamp in the town) with LED street lamps.
We need the LED light bulbs because it's better for the environment.
@@meganconnell6853 LED lanterns may be “better for the environment” but what about the perfectly working lanterns that are being scrapped and sent to landfill?
Hi Mike. I was wondering if you knew how to wire up a Philips L4135 sox 180 watt ballast as I have one but have no idea how to wire the component up. Any links or diagrams of how to wire this up would be very appreciated!
Hmm...I never seem to have drawn a diagram for one of those - I need to make amends there! In the meantime, I'll talk you through it...
Looking left to right, the Live In connects into the first terminal, then (assuming that you're on a 240 V supply) ignore the next two and connect the Neutral into terminal 4, a 20 Microfarad 300 V (not the standard 240 V type) capacitor into 5 and 6, and then the lamp connections in 7 and 8 (and, of course, the earth into the separate terminal to the right of the main strip).
The capacitor MUST be connected with this ballast type, incidentally; I'm not quite certain as to why this is, but I think that it's to do with the lamp ignition circuit.
I've added the diagram now: www.streetlightonline.co.uk/Philips_L4135_135W_180W_SOX_Ballast.pdf .
@@StreetLightOnline ah brilliant. Thanks very much for this. It’s interesting to me that no Ignitor is used but I guess it may be built into the rather heavy ballast I assume. This all makes good sense now. I will have a look at the diagrams now. A capacitor is on order at the correct voltage and microfarads. When working I will try to remember to reply and send the images of the working Sox lamp 👍🏼
No problem! Yeah, in a leak transformer, there isn't a separate ignitor, and you're right - they are very heavy objects! You can always tell a column that has a leak transformer in the base on damp mornings, as there's a dry patch around the column at the position where the transformer is positioned - the effect is more obvious on concrete columns, which act a bit like a storage heater, with the aggregate heated from within. I look forward to seeing the working lamp - wiring up an L4135 was the first time that I received an electric shock, would you believe - I'd forgotten to switch off the supply but remembered very quickly once I touched the live wire!
@@StreetLightOnline ah yes. There’s some GEC 135 watt Sox lantern here in bolsover and many more other gems, I would quickly add that the top post GEC Z5640 lanterns in the high street are still there and planning on rescuing all 6 of them. I believe the collum bases do actually have a dry patch on aswell, which always mate me interested to why but now I know so thanks for that bit of interesting information. The ballasts ate very heavy and incredibly interesting objects to acquire. I will hopefully avoid getting an electrical shock from this unit as I’ve already had 2 in the past. The first from a Thorn Beta 5 where one wire out of the Ignitor was bare and was not connected to the capacitor, therefore made the canopy live too! After that I realised how useful a terminal block can be! The other was when I started to unscrew a terminal block and the mains was connected, hopefully that thought me a lesson there to ensure the plug is disconnected from the wall next time!
Where's Dave now?
I'd love to know!
I know the area of where the lamp post in this is,its in the hillingdon borough of london near the hillingdon trail as you can see the sign on the lamp post for it, the collumn will most likely still be there but unfortunately the lantern will now be a philips unistreet.
I've just spent far too much time on Google satellite images trying to locate the road, but everywhere around the Hillingdon Trail is too built-up, and it's not as if the houses have been built since the programme was made, as they're all an older design...that'll bug me until I find the exact location now!
@@StreetLightOnline it’s hill end road in harefield, it’s the lamp post with the brown Hillingdon trail sign on it, it’s best use the desk top version and use 2009 footage as there’s a lot more signs been added to the column, but it’s definitely the one
There’s now also a sign on it that says “allotment site” which has been added sometime before 2009
By jingo, you're right - the trees have grown somewhat since then! I think that another column must have been used for the close-up shots, as the Beta 5 on that is newer (if not brand new at the time), and features a shallow bowl, whereas the one in all of the long shots is deep-bowled.
@@StreetLightOnline Yes, I remember spotting the fact that the close up shots showed a newer Beta 5, but the longer shots were clearly of an older Beta 5. The scene where they're up changing the bulb must have been a different light. On Google maps, if you go further down the road towards Springwell Lane (change the street view image year to around 2016 or less) you can see there are columns with the newer bets 5's on top. So, there must have been a reason for them not to show the same streetlight throughout filming, although it doesn't make a lot of sense to me why they did that.
What is the street or road name where they replaced the light?
I wish that I knew; I'd go there on pilgrimage!
I know the road, it’s in my local town, but all the street lights was changed years ago now :/ the ones in the show are gone
That's a shame, but not unexpected.
The Explorer Returns What is the road called ?
1:46 MOT failure right there 😂
Ironic that even one of the aeroplane's lights is defective!
Did they have MOTs back then?
I think so
By law it's supposed to have one before every flight; lights, beacons, fuel the lot
That post top mercury one is my favorite in the episode 0:32
I think that they're Phosco P107s - probably on time switch control!
If you look at the van an the guys t-shirt you can see the councils logo, it’s not harefield or Middlesex because they have a different logo. It looks very similar to south Staffordshire’s logo, so I was thinking it could have been filmed there and maybe they’ve just updated it a bit. Wether anyone Says that’s it’s gone or there still no one knows until the council is established.
6:17 I saw Maidenhead Bridge
I am heartbroken 💔
High pressure sodium’s r the best! It’s sad that they r replacing the old ones with led..
Nah...SOX all the way here!
@@StreetLightOnline agreed
@StreetLightOnline someone had to say it I love Sox. I’m very thankful that I still have sox on my road in April 2020 along with a bit of HPS here. Who knows how long it will be before the life of all the lanterns come to the end of their life on my road. Still I will probably see if I can get them of the council to give them to me.
I hope that you're lucky in that conquest! The last three MI 26s on my estate have bitten the dust, as of this week - this time last year, those on my street had about a week left before they were replaced.
StreetLightOnline we still have a few phosco P226 lanterns which I don’t know if you have any on your collection so when they are replaced they may be some interest to you
5:15
5:15 12:37
Who is from red hill primary school, England Chislehurst
Since then, this lantern was replaced in 2018/19 with a CU Phosco P852.
The Beta 5 lasted for longer than I thought that it would! The episode wouldn't be able to be re-made these days, as of course, LED lanterns NEVER fail, and so there wouldn't be a fault to report..!
@@StreetLightOnline LED lantetns does actually fail!
I wouldn't believe it - the manufacturers told us "fit and forget"; surely, they cannot be wrong..!
How do you know this? @Chris Johnston just asking and could you share the location of where it is (off google maps)
Actually was a Philips Unistreet not a P852
15:94
I miss this show
5:35
5:14 12:41
5:15 12:37
2:24