A note on LEDs and Outdoor Lighting

It's no shock to anyone that high power LEDs revolutionized the lighting industry. Arguably, this is nowhere more evident than in outdoor lighting. Just about every major city is engaged in some level of effort to revamp their outdoor lighting systems to take advantage of the lower maintenance costs, energy efficiency, and controllability encompassed in today's led-based outdoor lighting.

To the designer of outdoor lighting products, most notably streetlights, it can be said this isn't your grandfather's incandescent light fixture.  It's no longer an AC device where all one needs to do is get line power to a lamp that in its worst implementation puts out 90% heat and 10% light. The normal electrical skill set of the designer has transitioned to one with a familiarity with digital electronics, powering constant current LEDs, various wireless and wired communication techniques, power supply design, sensor integration and a host of different agency and qualification requirements.

While normal connectors can be used, they are far from optimum in many instances so the use of specialized connectors designed specifically for streetlight is now the norm. Even the ubiquitous NEMA/ANSI photo control receptacle present on most streetlights has changed to accommodate the digital electronic nature of the streetlight and controls. In many instances, power line filters that were never needed in older designs are now being implemented in streetlights to suppress digital emissions and minimize susceptibility to external power line noise.