Designplan Concourse

Lantern acquired in May 2005.

This lantern had only been used for a few weeks when it was removed owing to a huge row regarding its column (of all things). The Housing department at the council had put in an ordinary one amongst the lighting department's raise-and-lowers; however, repair work would have had to be carried out using a ladder - as there was no access for a bucket van in the area in which it was installed. Eventually, the offending column was replaced with a raise-and-lower and an Iridium was fitted. Since the lighting department do not use Concourses, this one would have been scrapped. Having said that, the lanterns are used (perhaps overused) a lot in the area, especially to light car parks in educational establishments.

Apart from being square shaped, the Concourse is very similar to the 2015 - the canopy is removed by turning the central screw on both, and both have quite flimsy patterned polycarbonate bowls.

Oddly, the canopy itself has a large X shape moulded into it, but as the four sections in-between the X do not have much depth to them, moisture cannot build up. The two screws on either side of the central locking screw hold two chains inside the lantern in place - these stop the canopy from slipping when it is open.

This shows the patterning of the bowl - as well as the square spigot! (The spigot becomes cylindrical by the grub screws to allow the lantern to be tightened to the column.)

The retention chains mentioned above are shown here. The NEMA socket is wired using some 5-core flex, but the earth and L3 wires are cut short as they are not required for a NEMA circuit. The ballast is located underneath the gear tray, in case you were wondering!

The ballast isn't as close to the lamp as is suggested here, but it isn't far off! The incoming cable is very close however, and even though the lantern had only been installed for a short time, it was already looking as if it had been well heated as it passed by the lamp. I will replace it with some heat resistant cable to try to prevent this from happening again. The lamp itself is unusual - it actually is rated 100 Watt but is no larger than a 70 Watt.

The lantern was powered up on Monday, 5th September 2005. Once the lamp had fully warmed up, it gave out a very bright white beam - similar to a Venture 'White-Lux' lamp.

Lantern warm-up video:

The photographs below show a Concourse in-situ:

This 80 Watt MBF example (complete with heavily yellowed bowl!) is one of a number on the now-demolished Derby College Pride Parkway campus.

Thorn EMI Alpha 3 | WRTL Arc

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