I actually had a job were i repaired a ton of city management stuff, including that EXACT light you have. Those blank spaces on the led board are not for transistors but for uncommon and expensive resistors in to252 package instead of that smd resistor array. The control back in the day used to be by big clunky relays, but more or less from 90's on, they are made with triac or scr. The power supply consumes more than led needs, because many controllers have current sensing for detect "broken" lamps, first led modules that where more efficient didn't work with older controller types without bodging a load resistor to trick the controller, the problem was when the led failed the controller didn't detect it, so the complexity of the power supply has to do with: fail detection, fast response, low flicker, low inrush current and good power factor. Newer controller systems from Siemens are bloody complicated and expensive, they are practically computers with more redundant stuff. By the way i'm from Portugal.
I don't think he uses one here, usually he plugs such transformer after the extension cord not before. And the black skidmark on the sockets of the cord tells you he doesn't go easy on things ☺
@@5Dale65if you wear shoes and observe the "only one hand in the apparatus" rule you are fine without an isolation transformer. Just don't let OSHA know...
@@albinklein7680 Capacitive coupling can still give you a nasty shock. Maybe not extremely dangerous but still, ouch! Especially if the floor is concrete/steel. Also his mains is 220Vac.
@@westelaudio943Not on 230V or with the capacitance of just your body. Even with the few nF of Y2 capacitors in many class II power supplies (double insulation, so not grounded) you get barely noticeable tingle, but human body has barely few 100's pF. If you got a shock while "touching just one spot", you were definitely not touching just that one spot, but most likely were grounded somewhere else. The thing is, conductivity of many materials increases when the voltage goes up. So even when something appear as not conductive (20MOhm or more) on your multimeter, it may easily pass a few 10's or even 100 mA at 230V. But that is not capacitive coupling, that still is a conductive path.
This module is a common type of LED in traffic lights in europe. Mainly in Germany and Austria. Its made by Swarco in Austria. This 3rd Version (FuturLED3) runs in many traffic lights over 10 Years without maintenance. Very good buid qualtity. They switched with triacs. Nowadays some manufactures made modules with 1-2W of power. In comparison to old bulbs with 100W (E27 Socket) or 20W (12V low voltage Lamps) its a good improvement.
A most interesting investigation of the traffic light. The angles achieved by the Fresnel lens using concentric annular sections I was always fascinated with in my days as a stage and film lighting designer. These days of course all the lighting instruments are LED based and DMX controlled which has dumbed down the satisfaction one felt when designing a layout using say 150 lanterns from focusable Fresnel (tight to wide), cyclorama floods, projectors, and profiles with gobos and accurate focus as specials all plugged into a large dimmer rack. Then presenting the stage or set crew with a A1 technical lighting schematic with the required Daisey-chained instruments, and dimmer allocations with max watts calculated. Now it is all computer designed and once the queues are plotted the lighting tech is reduced to pushing a single keyboard button for the next LX queue scene. The only advantage with modern theatre lighting where many of the lanterns are motorized is the designs and queues are stored in memory and it make running show A in the afternoon and show B in the evening with the design changed just by recalling memory a doddle and increase throughput of shows and profit.. The old system relied on people using their brain, experience and knowledge. I may be an old man yelling at clouds here. I feel it is another form of dumbing us humans down. Thanks for the video.
Niiice video, thank you! We could say your inspiration there was divided in 3 “seasons”: First half= presents your initial findings at a more superficial level - nice. Third quarter= shows troubleshooting and some more detailed analysis - nicer. Final quarter presents some interesting investigation and correlates with past findings as DIY spectroscopy, circadian, etc. - nicer too!
'Amber' in the UK :) x I used to have a Czech friend who pronounced 'Fruits' the same way you did. I always smiled when he said it, while he told me off for grinning at him. That's why I love Czech people, so full of life, fun and make great friends :) I know traffic lights in the UK used to be PLC controlled (so yes, relays) but I don't know how they are now or in the rest of the world =)
Madison Wisconsin had changed to all led traffic lights and one winter a sticky snow stuck covered the traffic lights. The old inefficient lights made enough heat to melt snow off. The city had to send crew to sweep them all off. But worse is that there is terrible RF interference that will wipe out some radio signals when you are close to the lights.
Classic words of wisdom: “every time a human behavior makes absolutely no sense you just have to remember we were calibrated about a million years ago and then everything suddenly makes a perfect sense”.
An issue that these LED traffic lights have in the US is that they don’t get hot enough to melt snow on them. In some places they even install heaters inside the traffic light to get around this issue.
yeah that happened in Madison Wisconsin one winter with a sideways sticky snow. All the lights were covered and they had to send crews out to sweep them off.
These type of LEDs (in trafic lights) have reverse voltage protection. And in the case of green LEDs, the protection is done with RED LEDs connected in parallel and in reverse (there are 2 chips inside the LED package). So if you connect the LED in reverse, the protection diode will shine in red. Of course, the protection LED is way smaller than the main one. I guess that it is only for reverse ESD protection. But it is nice.
I recall that idea (2 colour LED aspect) being used in a railway signal. Someone reversed the polarity and caused a "wrong-side" failure (green when it should be red).
Yes, some of the red ones even had 2 filaments. And also they're operated at a lower temperature to last longer, as this is more important than efficiency for this application. And of course, low voltage lamps had a higher efficiency than the mains voltage ones.
They last forever. My father has a traffic light bulb in his stairway to the cellar. It is a 60W heavy duty Osram bulb with the hammer symbol on it. It gets switched on and off at least five times every day and according to my father it is installed there for at least fifty years.
@@albinklein7680 And the new fancy one is already bad... because someone apparently didn't know how to mount a power transistor. Something even an amateur like me could do much better.
Danke! TY! Badly Mounted Heatsink for something ment to be reliable for safty reasons OMG Simple and not acceptable failure for gadets like this.. especially for NOTMADEINRPC! ALSO this one screw ultra thin washer mounting of the PSU board
Fantastic video. I learn so much that I wasn't expecting to learn watching your videos. My house is festooned with orange LEDs linked to a PIR motion sensor. I can stumble to the bathroom in the middle of the night without actually waking up.
Made in Austria, not Australia :) Cool fix on this thing - it's so simple! Truth be told, the unit should have additional resistors for heating it up in frosty weather to prevent snow from gathering on the glass. It was never the case wit light bulb traffic lights - but now that we have power-saving LEDs, there's just no heat... Fortunately, additional heating can be turned on only if necessary.
@9:19 - That solder connection is 1000x better. Nice. Can't ever have too fat a trace. EDIT* - I am not being critical. Because of DGW I have actually pulled out an old Craftsman solder gun I have that was made before Jesus was a child. I have to admit, it can really overpower that old solder that barely melts. You really have to throttle the trigger though. It always wins though.
The old 60-40 melts really well. It's the RoHS stuff that doesn't. I think he should have removed most all of the RoHS crap before resoldering it. Now he has a dodgy alloy that might not take the heat well. But, as it's not in regular service - doesn't matter.
I haven't thought about the orange / warn light and the sleep process, heard about, but never put my brain to think about a reason or if it makes sense or not, from what you said it makes perfect sense
I feel a very strong effect of blue light just as described, it’s definitely real. It’s why offices have used cool or neutral white fluorescent tubes for decades.
14:53 I always thought the sensitivity to green light was because humans adapted to the savannah which is mostly yellow, and green plants mostly grow near water sources. But your explanation also makes sense! Of course, my guess would only make sense if that were specific to humans. If our relatives like chimps and gorillas who mostly live in forests have similar eyesight, then that is not a good explanation
AFAIK, the most commonly accepted explanation, is that unlike birds and some reptiles, mammals lost the ability to see green since they were initially primarily nocturnal (think dogs and cats). Later, with the need to see during daylight with acuity, the receptors for green reappeared again, but with substantial overlap in sensitivity. I think in birds they even have pigment to help narrow the skirts of the respective responses and even have sensitivity in the UV region. The peaks are much more evenly spaced without as much overlap in response.
You're right. They very much so see some ultraviolet, for example starlings for us just appear opalizing black, some people even mistake them with blackbirds , whereas their females are very much able to discern intricate patterns in their male plummage visible only in uv
Could you maybe scratch the box on the outside? I was wondering if they can put an aluminized coating on plastics now. The case puzzles me more than the electronics.
Here in the UK a yellow traffic light is usually called amber. "This man is an amber gambler..." UK traffic light road safety ad from 1977. th-cam.com/video/H4TDEPP1R9Q/w-d-xo.html
Ďakujem za toto video s opravou LED semafórového svetla, toto výrobca trochu odflákol, že ten tranzistor s chladičom drží len na tých troch nožičkách toho tranzistora, ten chladič mal byť upevnený na DPS buď jedným šroubom a umiestnený naležato alebo nastojato ale tiež nejako upevnený, napríklad pomcou hrubšej nožičky alebo dvoch nožičiek vystupujúcich zo spodu chladiča (tak to na niektorých chladičoch býva).
I remember reading a long time ago that the colors of a traffic signal were chosen to be easier for colorblind people to distinguish. Thus the green aspect is a bit towards blue, while the red aspect is slightly orange. I'm not sure if they had to make such a change for the amber one. I wonder how accurate that information actually is. Annoyingly, the city of San Jose near me is covered in sodium street lights that are all very close to the amber aspect of a traffic light. So you can be driving along with these amber-yellow lights everywhere and then suddenly a group of them turn red right as you are about to enter an intersection.
I am color blind, the most common one (green-red) and I hate the orange ones, I tend to confuse them with green, and it doesn't happen so much with yellow.
One colorblind colleague didn't see deep red at all. Red LEDs would just show as black to him. Red incandescent traffic lights, he could see. I suppose that's why they are having the color tending to orange a bit.
Why modern street light can't have a single power adapter for the whole three color light fixture, so that the actual light on/of signal could control only the final MOSFET?
Man isn't a hunter and gatherer. Man, is meant to evolve, faster. You don't see that around often. Its just that in some part of the world, these theories are still taught.
That is a bit depressing... After all that work designing the thing, and they couldn't be bothered to use a heatsink with support tabs. Guess the mechanical designer had the day off.
I almost got seriously hurt or killed by these stupid things... wet snow packed up the LED traffic lights on a high-speed road which I was a stopped at. I got a green light and started off but the cross traffic never stopped! Several dozen complete idiots sped right through an obstructed red light in slippery weather before someone finally stopped for the "broken" stoplight...
The green sensitivity might be cultural. There are some groups of people who can distinguish greens as finely as we distinguish yellow from orange. This can be taught.
Electrolytic capacitor and many other points of failure in a device that's designed to survive very cold and very hot weather 24/7, doesn't seem like a great idea.
I thought they would put a full circle of LEDs for redundancy and reliability and avoid any kind of optical lenses. Why did they throw it out when there was simply one component loose? People maintaining roads waste too much tax money in addition to corruption. Humans need to add another color sensor between green and blue. There is a lot of free space. But red and green are compressed together.
Yes, a lot of traffic lights actually use a circle full of low power LED, but not all of them. Well, nobody fixes these things on component level. They replace the whole module. Paying a professional to fix them would cost a lot of money, and these things have to be reliable. No one wants to be responsible for them causing a crash. A new one is always safer. Humans actually don't have a red sensor, it's blue, green and yellow.
I have a sh*tload of those traffic light LED units. I live in Germany and here those are changed out every two or three years or so. They all go into the trash. A friend of mine works at the "Bauhof", a public outfit maintaining traffic equipment.
I love that one of your sockets on the power strip has black soot on it! Thanks for all of your videos, I very much enjoy watching your channel! Tell your cat I said “psst psst psst” 😀
Of course it is over-complicated. It is Austrian! Is has to detect electricity coming from a nuclear power plant and report this immediately to the operator of the traffic lights, so he can shut the whole system off immediately, so drivers are not harmed by radiation! You know, safety first. Especially in Austria.
Why don't you like torx screws, they are one of the best screws you can buy? You almost never shoot out with torx screws, but you do with philips or pozidrive screws.
@@LMB222 The word "amber" has its origins in the Arabic word "ʽanbar" and refers to a pale yellow, sometimes reddish or brownish, fossil resin. It is also used as a name for girls and is associated with the concepts of safety, confidence, and happiness. The name is closely related to the color amber, which is a bright yellow-orange hue associated with nature and the fossilized tree resin.
I actually had a job were i repaired a ton of city management stuff, including that EXACT light you have. Those blank spaces on the led board are not for transistors but for uncommon and expensive resistors in to252 package instead of that smd resistor array. The control back in the day used to be by big clunky relays, but more or less from 90's on, they are made with triac or scr. The power supply consumes more than led needs, because many controllers have current sensing for detect "broken" lamps, first led modules that where more efficient didn't work with older controller types without bodging a load resistor to trick the controller, the problem was when the led failed the controller didn't detect it, so the complexity of the power supply has to do with: fail detection, fast response, low flicker, low inrush current and good power factor. Newer controller systems from Siemens are bloody complicated and expensive, they are practically computers with more redundant stuff. By the way i'm from Portugal.
I love the exploded skidmark on the end of your powerstrip lol
"This is probably not an isolated power supply" - proceeds to touch bare components while it's plugged in...
Maybe using an isolation transformer. And I think he did so in previous videos.
I don't think he uses one here, usually he plugs such transformer after the extension cord not before. And the black skidmark on the sockets of the cord tells you he doesn't go easy on things ☺
@@5Dale65if you wear shoes and observe the "only one hand in the apparatus" rule you are fine without an isolation transformer. Just don't let OSHA know...
@@albinklein7680
Capacitive coupling can still give you a nasty shock. Maybe not extremely dangerous but still, ouch! Especially if the floor is concrete/steel. Also his mains is 220Vac.
@@westelaudio943Not on 230V or with the capacitance of just your body. Even with the few nF of Y2 capacitors in many class II power supplies (double insulation, so not grounded) you get barely noticeable tingle, but human body has barely few 100's pF.
If you got a shock while "touching just one spot", you were definitely not touching just that one spot, but most likely were grounded somewhere else. The thing is, conductivity of many materials increases when the voltage goes up. So even when something appear as not conductive (20MOhm or more) on your multimeter, it may easily pass a few 10's or even 100 mA at 230V. But that is not capacitive coupling, that still is a conductive path.
This module is a common type of LED in traffic lights in europe. Mainly in Germany and Austria. Its made by Swarco in Austria. This 3rd Version (FuturLED3) runs in many traffic lights over 10 Years without maintenance. Very good buid qualtity. They switched with triacs. Nowadays some manufactures made modules with 1-2W of power. In comparison to old bulbs with 100W (E27 Socket) or 20W (12V low voltage Lamps) its a good improvement.
Using solder joints as a mechanical fixture is bad design.
Good quality, is it really... power transistor on flimsy traces, without strain relief - heat sink not mounted to the board,
@@mojoblues66 That's all it needs. Traffic lights are stationary, unlike USB chargers etc.
I'm convinced you are a electrical genius.
I love the scorched ("berrrnt") socket in your extension box! Looks very familiar!
A most interesting investigation of the traffic light. The angles achieved by the Fresnel lens using concentric annular sections I was always fascinated with in my days as a stage and film lighting designer. These days of course all the lighting instruments are LED based and DMX controlled which has dumbed down the satisfaction one felt when designing a layout using say 150 lanterns from focusable Fresnel (tight to wide), cyclorama floods, projectors, and profiles with gobos and accurate focus as specials all plugged into a large dimmer rack. Then presenting the stage or set crew with a A1 technical lighting schematic with the required Daisey-chained instruments, and dimmer allocations with max watts calculated. Now it is all computer designed and once the queues are plotted the lighting tech is reduced to pushing a single keyboard button for the next LX queue scene. The only advantage with modern theatre lighting where many of the lanterns are motorized is the designs and queues are stored in memory and it make running show A in the afternoon and show B in the evening with the design changed just by recalling memory a doddle and increase throughput of shows and profit.. The old system relied on people using their brain, experience and knowledge. I may be an old man yelling at clouds here. I feel it is another form of dumbing us humans down. Thanks for the video.
Old man agrees
Niiice video, thank you! We could say your inspiration there was divided in 3 “seasons”:
First half= presents your initial findings at a more superficial level - nice.
Third quarter= shows troubleshooting and some more detailed analysis - nicer.
Final quarter presents some interesting investigation and correlates with past findings as DIY spectroscopy, circadian, etc. - nicer too!
'Amber' in the UK :) x I used to have a Czech friend who pronounced 'Fruits' the same way you did. I always smiled when he said it, while he told me off for grinning at him. That's why I love Czech people, so full of life, fun and make great friends :) I know traffic lights in the UK used to be PLC controlled (so yes, relays) but I don't know how they are now or in the rest of the world =)
Madison Wisconsin had changed to all led traffic lights and one winter a sticky snow stuck covered the traffic lights. The old inefficient lights made enough heat to melt snow off. The city had to send crew to sweep them all off. But worse is that there is terrible RF interference that will wipe out some radio signals when you are close to the lights.
Classic words of wisdom: “every time a human behavior makes absolutely no sense you just have to remember we were calibrated about a million years ago and then everything suddenly makes a perfect sense”.
And here in the UK, we call it Amber, just to be different... :P
An issue that these LED traffic lights have in the US is that they don’t get hot enough to melt snow on them. In some places they even install heaters inside the traffic light to get around this issue.
Back to Tungston
At least you can tun the heater only in low ambient conditions.
yeah that happened in Madison Wisconsin one winter with a sideways sticky snow. All the lights were covered and they had to send crews out to sweep them off.
Your knowledge brightens my day
These type of LEDs (in trafic lights) have reverse voltage protection. And in the case of green LEDs, the protection is done with RED LEDs connected in parallel and in reverse (there are 2 chips inside the LED package). So if you connect the LED in reverse, the protection diode will shine in red. Of course, the protection LED is way smaller than the main one. I guess that it is only for reverse ESD protection. But it is nice.
I recall that idea (2 colour LED aspect) being used in a railway signal. Someone reversed the polarity and caused a "wrong-side" failure (green when it should be red).
No rational reason needed LOL- I love the cat's commentary :p
TH-cam should require every video to include at least one kitty.
I have an old tungsten bulb for one. Very heavy well supported filament. Like the rough service types.
Yes, some of the red ones even had 2 filaments. And also they're operated at a lower temperature to last longer, as this is more important than efficiency for this application. And of course, low voltage lamps had a higher efficiency than the mains voltage ones.
They last forever. My father has a traffic light bulb in his stairway to the cellar. It is a 60W heavy duty Osram bulb with the hammer symbol on it.
It gets switched on and off at least five times every day and according to my father it is installed there for at least fifty years.
@@albinklein7680
And the new fancy one is already bad... because someone apparently didn't know how to mount a power transistor. Something even an amateur like me could do much better.
Video is bloody long? No, bloody interesting!
Danke!
TY!
Badly Mounted Heatsink for something ment to be reliable for safty reasons OMG
Simple and not acceptable failure for gadets like this.. especially for NOTMADEINRPC!
ALSO this
one screw ultra thin washer
mounting of the PSU board
Fantastic video. I learn so much that I wasn't expecting to learn watching your videos. My house is festooned with orange LEDs linked to a PIR motion sensor. I can stumble to the bathroom in the middle of the night without actually waking up.
Excellent video as usual!!!!
Thanks. Great video.
Really nice!
But that power supply seemed half assed - so complex, but still so low efficiency.
Made in Austria, not Australia :)
Cool fix on this thing - it's so simple!
Truth be told, the unit should have additional resistors for heating it up in frosty weather to prevent snow from gathering on the glass. It was never the case wit light bulb traffic lights - but now that we have power-saving LEDs, there's just no heat... Fortunately, additional heating can be turned on only if necessary.
Polska czy Czechy to nie Madison, Wisconsin, u nas nie są normą kilkunastostopniowe mrozy ani duże opady śniegu
Really Cool!!!
power consumption >8 watt because some lights have a "blown / open" bulb detector. The light needs to draw extra power to not cause a false alarm.
That makes sense :)
3:56 nice lamp, yes I hate torx screws too haha🤣☺
"Humans are out of calibration" .... nice!
@9:19 - That solder connection is 1000x better. Nice. Can't ever have too fat a trace. EDIT* - I am not being critical. Because of DGW I have actually pulled out an old Craftsman solder gun I have that was made before Jesus was a child. I have to admit, it can really overpower that old solder that barely melts. You really have to throttle the trigger though. It always wins though.
The old 60-40 melts really well. It's the RoHS stuff that doesn't. I think he should have removed most all of the RoHS crap before resoldering it. Now he has a dodgy alloy that might not take the heat well. But, as it's not in regular service - doesn't matter.
I haven't thought about the orange / warn light and the sleep process, heard about, but never put my brain to think about a reason or if it makes sense or not, from what you said it makes perfect sense
I feel a very strong effect of blue light just as described, it’s definitely real. It’s why offices have used cool or neutral white fluorescent tubes for decades.
14:53 I always thought the sensitivity to green light was because humans adapted to the savannah which is mostly yellow, and green plants mostly grow near water sources. But your explanation also makes sense!
Of course, my guess would only make sense if that were specific to humans. If our relatives like chimps and gorillas who mostly live in forests have similar eyesight, then that is not a good explanation
AFAIK, the most commonly accepted explanation, is that unlike birds and some reptiles, mammals lost the ability to see green since they were initially primarily nocturnal (think dogs and cats). Later, with the need to see during daylight with acuity, the receptors for green reappeared again, but with substantial overlap in sensitivity. I think in birds they even have pigment to help narrow the skirts of the respective responses and even have sensitivity in the UV region. The peaks are much more evenly spaced without as much overlap in response.
You're right. They very much so see some ultraviolet, for example starlings for us just appear opalizing black, some people even mistake them with blackbirds , whereas their females are very much able to discern intricate patterns in their male plummage visible only in uv
Ta ohořelá zásuvka... 😂
So cool 😎👍👍👍
Could you maybe scratch the box on the outside? I was wondering if they can put an aluminized coating on plastics now. The case puzzles me more than the electronics.
probably the other way around. You can put plastic coatings on pretty much anything, including aluminium of course.
It's just an aluminum cup glued into the plastic housing. If it was a coating, the screw driver would have scraped right through it.
Amber !....cheers
Here in the UK a yellow traffic light is usually called amber.
"This man is an amber gambler..." UK traffic light road safety ad from 1977.
th-cam.com/video/H4TDEPP1R9Q/w-d-xo.html
3:37 that's baffling! hehe
8 watt power draw.
1 watt for the LED's.
7 watts for the power supply.
This lamp needs more saaaaaaaalt
Even more saaaaaaaalt!
And even more SAAAAAAAALLLLLLLTTTTTTTTTTTT
Good
Ďakujem za toto video s opravou LED semafórového svetla, toto výrobca trochu odflákol, že ten tranzistor s chladičom drží len na tých troch nožičkách toho tranzistora, ten chladič mal byť upevnený na DPS buď jedným šroubom a umiestnený naležato alebo nastojato ale tiež nejako upevnený, napríklad pomcou hrubšej nožičky alebo dvoch nožičiek vystupujúcich zo spodu chladiča (tak to na niektorých chladičoch býva).
Jj, přesně tak, chladič nemá viset za nožičky součástky. Častá chyba.
The colorbis actually amber.
I remember reading a long time ago that the colors of a traffic signal were chosen to be easier for colorblind people to distinguish. Thus the green aspect is a bit towards blue, while the red aspect is slightly orange. I'm not sure if they had to make such a change for the amber one. I wonder how accurate that information actually is.
Annoyingly, the city of San Jose near me is covered in sodium street lights that are all very close to the amber aspect of a traffic light. So you can be driving along with these amber-yellow lights everywhere and then suddenly a group of them turn red right as you are about to enter an intersection.
I am color blind, the most common one (green-red) and I hate the orange ones, I tend to confuse them with green, and it doesn't happen so much with yellow.
One colorblind colleague didn't see deep red at all. Red LEDs would just show as black to him. Red incandescent traffic lights, he could see.
I suppose that's why they are having the color tending to orange a bit.
Best bit at 4:02 :)
The day you need it you forget the special fire extinguisher 🙂
👍
Why modern street light can't have a single power adapter for the whole three color light fixture, so that the actual light on/of signal could control only the final MOSFET?
I guess this one was retrofitted into a traffic light system originally with 230V tungsten lamps.
I expect those LED's are quite specialised. I wonder what they are worth.
They're definitely odd. The voltage drop is significantly higher than any normal yellow or orange LEDs.
Yellow traffic lights are usually lit for a very short time. Maybe the guts of other color lights are different?
well they can also be in flashing mode for 30min+ in some cases, at least in germany.
Chtěl bych se zeptat, jestli bude i schéma zapojení tohoto zdroje?
We call that the “Amber” light here in the uk.
In Czech, we have a word for amber, but it's the kind of word used only in old books, so we tend to call things either yellow or orange.
What country is the light from ?
Nice, but... Now we want the schematics 😏
I’m curious about the insane complexity of the power supply. What is all that?
I suppose something with that big electrolytic cap, and still quickly switching off.
Now I know why I step on gas pedal whenever I see amber light. A hunter/gatherer in me makes me do that!
Why are there four wires from the power supply to the lamp unit?
Man isn't a hunter and gatherer. Man, is meant to evolve, faster. You don't see that around often. Its just that in some part of the world, these theories are still taught.
Still mostly hunters gatherers, except few individuals that invent technology...
@@DiodeGoneWild Evolution is subjective to what individuals choose to learn in their lifetime. Resolving issues through learning is invention too.
That is a bit depressing... After all that work designing the thing, and they couldn't be bothered to use a heatsink with support tabs. Guess the mechanical designer had the day off.
I wonder if it dims well from a triac dimmer?
It might, but it's only supposed to be turned on or off, not dimmed.
I'm surprised 3 regular LEDs is enough. Those lights have to be very bright.
we call it a yellow light in the us but the leds are clearly amber
I almost got seriously hurt or killed by these stupid things... wet snow packed up the LED traffic lights on a high-speed road which I was a stopped at. I got a green light and started off but the cross traffic never stopped! Several dozen complete idiots sped right through an obstructed red light in slippery weather before someone finally stopped for the "broken" stoplight...
"In some countries they call it yellow, in some countries they call it orange.'
In the UK, it is called 'amber'. No other description is accurate.
Yellow, or "amber"
Some call it Amber
I wonder if you install that light just right where the morning sun or evening Sun passing through the Fresno lens could desolder the LEDs😂Lol
Maybe, but there was probably a diffuser over the fresnel lens, so it wouldn't focus into such an intense spot.
The green sensitivity might be cultural. There are some groups of people who can distinguish greens as finely as we distinguish yellow from orange. This can be taught.
Is there a traffic light out there that goes red, nothing, green?😂😎👍
6:54 bc it's German engineered lol
Is it possible that the power supply was designed for something else ?
Maybe, but why would they do it. In China they would repurpose something they had no use for, even if not very suitable, but not in Austria.
Electrolytic capacitor and many other points of failure in a device that's designed to survive very cold and very hot weather 24/7, doesn't seem like a great idea.
Not like they don't need to replace the whole thing every now and then because of vandalism or people just running their cars into it xd
Yeah seems like many points, LEDs not in parallel, components loose not glued down, etc. But, guess it works well enough that they still buy them.
Red and green is missing then you have all colors:)
It's the height that plays games with your brain, making you think that the traffic signals are smaller than they actually are.
I thought they would put a full circle of LEDs for redundancy and reliability and avoid any kind of optical lenses. Why did they throw it out when there was simply one component loose? People maintaining roads waste too much tax money in addition to corruption.
Humans need to add another color sensor between green and blue. There is a lot of free space. But red and green are compressed together.
Yes, a lot of traffic lights actually use a circle full of low power LED, but not all of them.
Well, nobody fixes these things on component level. They replace the whole module. Paying a professional to fix them would cost a lot of money, and these things have to be reliable. No one wants to be responsible for them causing a crash. A new one is always safer.
Humans actually don't have a red sensor, it's blue, green and yellow.
I have a sh*tload of those traffic light LED units. I live in Germany and here those are changed out every two or three years or so. They all go into the trash. A friend of mine works at the "Bauhof", a public outfit maintaining traffic equipment.
@@albinklein7680 Still much less than incandescent ones, I suppose. A standard 1000 hr lamp would have to be replaced 8 times a year.
You talk so funny 🤣❤
But his English, even the technical terms, is absolutely perfect. Absolutely amazing.
@@albinklein7680 Yes he is decent. I am big fan of him.
I love that one of your sockets on the power strip has black soot on it! Thanks for all of your videos, I very much enjoy watching your channel! Tell your cat I said “psst psst psst” 😀
Looks Orange. In the US we call it yellow light even if it's Orange. Yellow light, speed up.
Amber
The profit margins must be gigantic, kind of cheaply build and I bet they charge the cities a fortune for each unit.
Yep and black solder mask !
I am sure that the costs for all the mandatory tests and evaluations are astronomical for those things.
It's not Yellow or Orange, it's Amber.
Traffic lights in Africa look different
Indeed they do. They are always off.
Hoi. What happend to Your g3id?? :)
my what?
Twoj przedluzacz jest czarny!!@@DiodeGoneWild
Of course it is over-complicated. It is Austrian! Is has to detect electricity coming from a nuclear power plant and report this immediately to the operator of the traffic lights, so he can shut the whole system off immediately, so drivers are not harmed by radiation! You know, safety first. Especially in Austria.
Why don't you use much smaller solder irons, that also weighs a lot lighter,
and so works MUCH easier and so better?
Why don't you like torx screws, they are one of the best screws you can buy?
You almost never shoot out with torx screws, but you do with philips or pozidrive screws.
It's not Yellow or Orange, it's Amber.
We don't really use this color name in Czech.
@@vaclavtrpisovskythat's a little ironic, considering Praha is one of the best places in Europe to buy amber jewelry! 😁
@@vaclavtrpisovskynobody uses that color except for Brits.
@@LMB222 The word "amber" has its origins in the Arabic word "ʽanbar" and refers to a pale yellow, sometimes reddish or brownish, fossil resin. It is also used as a name for girls and is associated with the concepts of safety, confidence, and happiness. The name is closely related to the color amber, which is a bright yellow-orange hue associated with nature and the fossilized tree resin.
@@LMB222brits are...