Lamp post lamp advice needed.

Pictures to follow shortly. 

Is that incoming brown and black 2 phases then?  - i.e. 400V between wires both sides 230 to ground? Sometimes done on very long runs, as effect of a few volts drop is less on 400V than 230.

Or it may be 230V of course and just a rather confusing choice of colours. (**)

I suggest you get your meter out and tell us the voltages wire to wire and wire to ground, both incoming and on the wires going up the pole to the lamp itself, both on the dim one and a dead one.

And then label it or write in sharpie inside the box.

Quite right, those LED lamps do not need a ballast, but they do need  the correct 230V, so it may be time to remove the ballast and either connect direct if the incoming is 230V, or track down a 400/230 transformer if it is 2 phase no neutral or find the other end of the supply cable and change it there.

If the holder is a simple screw in E27 then there has never been a lamp made for which that sort of ballast is correct, it would have beem externally ballasted CFLs that had a plug in base, and in any case either are already phased out, or will be phased out when florry tubes go out of production in the next year or so.

It can never have been quite right, and the correct thing to fit now is the LED lamps, but please with an un-ballasted 230V supply

(such errors are not unknown - actually  in the past  I have also seen a lighting tower with ballast at top in the lamp, and also at the bottom, the results were psychedelic, but not helpful. Despite protests 'it had always been like that'  it clearly hadn't.  Wire cutters and some terminal blocks came to the rescue on that one.)

Mike.

** EDIT errata.

On a larger  monitor the incoming wires look like red and black so that would be pre 2004, and probably 230V but do check for voltage anyway.

also as Graham notes I am wrong about the ballast type - it is for a SON E - the cheerful orange ones, still made screw in style in the smaller sizes..  https://www.tlc-direct.co.uk/Products/LASONE70slashI.html

If you have a look at the rating plate, it tells you what this ballast tray is for.

70 W SON sodium lamp - still available to the best of my knowledge, so provided the customer hasn't damaged the lamps by fitting LED or CFL, new lamp may well work.

The picture on the right looks like a standard CFL - so my guess is the customer has tried to fit a new lamp in here, and it's the wrong one.

mapj1 said:

Quite right, those LED lamps do not need a ballast, but they do need  the correct 230V, so it may be time to remove the ballast and either connect direct if the incoming is 230V, or track down a 400/230 transformer if it is 2 phase no neutral or find the other end of the supply cable and change it there.

Or fit the correct lamp ... the rating plate on the ballast says 240 V 50 Hz 70 W SON lamp ...

Is normal mains voltage present at the base of each light ? If so I would consider removing existing control gear and then installing LED retrofit lamps.

What controls these lamps, photocell, time switch, or something else, and is it working correctly.

If mains voltage is not present, then of course this needs investigating.

I would be very surprised if 400 volts has been used on a small installation like this, but check just in case.

The lamp pictured is almost certainly for direct connection to the mains without any control gear. I would therefore consider disconnecting the control gear and fitting new LED lamps of suitable wattage. "suitable" being customer choice. As little as 5 watts for decorative effect up to 15 watts or more if significant illumination is wanted. CFLs are still available in larger sizes and also worth considering.

I think roughly 30 W LED would be needed to be equivalent to a 70 W SON.

If the gear is still working, then a 70 W SON lamp can be obtained for around £7, compared with around £30 for an ES LED.

As above, 30 W LED for the same light output as a 70 W SON.

It doesn't look like a small property?

An example of a lamp being upgraded to LED by bypassing the ballast.