Street Lamps, shutting off?

i'm not sure if this is a myth but i'm pretty sure i read it a couple times. i did a search and there wasn't much info.

is it possible to shut off street lamps with a flashlight?
if so, where is the sensor?
and, how much lumens would you need in the hotspot?
anyone successful? what did you use?

seems like a good standard :candle:

I've never seen it done but I've heard stories as well. When I get that Polarion I plan to try it out.

Back when I was in high school (early 80's) with my Brinkmax bluemax Q-Beam we could momentarily turn off street lights no problem driving my them.

That round 'thing' on the top of the light is the photocell. I think they point them south so you may not turn them off if it isn't pointed at you.

Back then I don't think the Blue-max was rated at 2Million CP like they are today because I remember there was another light called the 'max-million'.

I don't know about street lamps but my neighbor has an alogen light over his gate that comes on when it's dark. With a few of my flashlights I am able to switch it off momentarily during the night.
The distance is about 25 - 30 m and I can do it with Lumapower D-Mini (easily), Fenix P3D and NiteCore Defender. SF L1 CREE can not do it.

Don't know about lights, but I've shut them off with a laser pen. (pointer) I would not have believed it, till I did it myself. The photo cell is on top of most of them. and you have to hit it right and hold it there for awhile.

It can definitely be done - I've done it!

The funny thing is that I did it completely by accident. I live on the 3rd floor of an apartment building, at about the same level as a street light. When I fired up my Mag623 (3,000+ lumens) for the first time on my balcony, it was pointing right in the direction of the streetlight. I stood in awe at the raw power of this light for about a second or two, and in that time, the streetlight turned right off. Surprised the heck out of me! I thought I'd broken the darn thing. ;-)

I'm guessing that the sensor that's tripped is located on top of the light. This would make sense, since it's supposed to gauge when the sun's out...and the sunlight would be coming from above. By being level with the top of the light (i.e. my balcony), I'm guessing that my Mag just happened to hit it perfectly and trip the sensor.

That said, I have no idea whether you could trip the sensor from street level, or whether anything less than 3,000 lumens would do it. And I'm definitely *not* recommending that you try this at home, kids! Just relating my own personal experience gained from a rather fortuitous accident!

- FITP

f22shift said:

i'm not sure if this is a myth but i'm pretty sure i read it a couple times. i did a search and there wasn't much info.

is it possible to shut off street lamps with a flashlight?
if so, where is the sensor?
and, how much lumens would you need in the hotspot?
anyone successful? what did you use?

seems like a good standard :candle:

Click to expand...

My girlfriend used to get freaked out when she drove past a street light in her neighborhood and the light would shut off. I let her go for a while, then one day I told her to drive by it without the brights on. Voila!

The streetlight in front of our house has a photocell mounted directly on top.


Used ta' be able to "shut it off" with a 4-D Mag-Lite,

or my Red laser pointer.



But now, for the past 2 years, it is no longer tripped by laser pointers.

Even my (new) green one seems to have no effect.


And NONE of my LED lights have ever managed to trigger it.


Now, only my 4-D Mag-Lite incand. can achieve this feat. :shrug:


Do you suppose they've updated the sensor, to only react
to the Infrared portion of the spectrum ?



BTW, ever since i was perhaps 8 years old (i'm now 54),
i've always wanted a flashlight bright enough to "shut-off" our streetlight !

:devil:
_

This topic is really funny for personal reasons. For a long time, I've had street lamps go off whenever I've walked or cycled by them. Not every time mind you, but it's probably happened at least 50 times in the 30 years. Coincidence, or am I an alien or something? What mechanism could cause a passerby on the ground to make a street light turn off? It's always seemed freaky because it's happened way too many times to be a random thing. Once or even twice maybe, but a few dozen times? Anyone else have this happen to them?

Hmmm, not sure what your local Department of Transportation/street light/signal maintenance folks (or whoever the appropriate agency is) -not to mention local law enforcement agencies- would think about you messing around with something that the taxpayers have paid for?

I'd bet it's an illegal activity & I wouldn't want to be sitting in a jail cell next to some drunk fellow who's wet all over himself and the floor, along with his big burley buddy who's winking at me just because I was caught doing something like this, eh?

Regardless this is one of those threads with activities that we will not allow to evolve further...so we'll just close it now.