I have thought about doing something similar many times over the years. I
always figured I would have it learn the healthy current of the fully
functional system with all lamps on and send an alarm if the current changed.
From: Forrest Christian (List Account)
Sent: Monday, November 27, 2017 6:19 PM
To: af
Subject: [AFMUG] Teach me about tower lights
One of the most popular questions/product requests I get is about tower light
monitoring.
It used to be that I sent people toward one of the off-the shelf tower light
monitors with a contact output and then monitored that with a base unit.
Unfortunately it seems that most of these only work with incandescent, and most
people are moving toward LED lights. So I'm getting a lot of 'I haven't found
one which will work with led lights'.
I know that many lighting controllers do some monitoring and have relay outputs
for failures. Recent feedback from customers seem to indicate that this is a
lot like the fox watching the henhouse, in that often the lighting controller
is the problem, especially with newer led lights which don't fail as much.
As a result of the above, I'm looking at doing a tower light monitor. But I
need some help understanding the reality of lighting towers, especially since
things have changed over the years, and some older towers I'm sure are
grandfathered under an older lighting/painting scheme.
The first question is related to flashing lights on a tower: The FAA circular
seems to state that all lights on a tower should flash together. Are all
tower lights all designed so that all of the flashing lights on a tower blink
at the same time? If so, it makes monitoring them a lot easier, since there's
only two lighting levels to monitoring.
I'm also wondering about control systems, and how they are wired. My google
searches seem to indicate that most towers with blinking lights have a control
box at the bottom which controls the lights on the tower (and sometimes provide
a indicator of a certain type of failure). Is this common? What other
systems are out there?
I am also intrigued by the daytime lighting systems, and probably need to think
about monitoring these as well. I'm assuming these are strobes. Anyone
install one of these?
I'm also curious about what type of power consumption the newer LED lights
have, and if measuring AC current is really even practical on these.
Any other information anyone can point me toward would be appreciated.
--
Forrest Christian CEO, PacketFlux Technologies, Inc.
Tel: 406-449-3345 | Address: 3577 Countryside Road, Helena, MT 59602
[email protected] | http://www.packetflux.com
