Disano Sella 1
Lantern acquired in April 2005.
As with my WRTL 2600, this lantern was also removed from a car park in Markeaton Park, Derby - though it came from a different one to where the 2600 had been installed. Again, a Beta 79 with 125 Watt mercury lamp was used as this lantern's replacement. To my knowledge, this was the only lantern of its type under City Council ownership, though there are a few in use in private car parks and the like around the city. Therefore, it may have been a trial lantern that had been given to the council by a Disano representative, hoping that more would be ordered after they had seen how this one performed. Clearly this never happened - perhaps due to cost, ease of installation, or quality of the product.
On hearing that the lantern was to be removed, I went and photographed it on Sunday, 24th April 2005. Originally, a 2600 was fitted to this column, but this was vandalised in 2001 and had to be replaced.
Just two days later, on the 26th, the lantern was in my collection. For saying that the lantern had only been in use for about four years, it was quite dirty and looked like it had been installed for a lot longer.
The canopy resembled the Beta 79's one in terms of its shape.
As the above pictures show, the lantern was mounted post-top when in use but it could be used as a side entry lantern if required.
The canopy unclips and lifts upwards to allow access to the gear. The lamp and reflector are fastened into the canopy. The NEMA socket (dated August 2001) looks to have been installed on-site as a length of flex is used to power it, with the earth wire being re-identified as the load wire.
I cleaned the lantern on Wednesday, 15th June 2005. This proved easy, as the separate pieces (canopy, bowl etc) could be removed by undoing the screws holding them in place.
The canopy did clean up, but some marks refused to go away on the sides. The two prongs sticking out of the back of the lantern hold the plate that the bracket slides into - I changed the post top mounting to a side-entry one.
Most of the dirt washed off straight away on top of the canopy.
My best result was with the underside of the lantern - this came up like new.
The lantern was mounted to an AC Ford AC872 wall bracket on Tuesday, 16th August 2005.
The light from a White-Lux lamp is slightly greener than something like a CDM-TT lamp of the same wattage.
The following couple of photographs show the Beta 79 that replaced the Sella 1. This lantern is fitted with a 125 Watt mercury lamp:
I spotted that this lantern had itself become a victim of vandalism on Sunday, 12th March 2006. The gear tray had been wrenched open and the ballast was hanging by its wires. Due to the safety issues surrounding this, repairs were carried out the following day. Thankfully the lantern was retained; although the gear tray was heavily buckled and did not fit properly into the lantern. These photographs were taken a few days after repairs had taken place:
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