Streetlights should be provided by Government run companies (in some countrys) - Page 1
Forum section: electronics / general

author: ocset
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 22, 2018, 06:16:26 pm
content: Hi,OK here’s the deal…….you are a small lighting company and you want to buy in some (20,000) streetlight LED drivers to put in your new streetlights.(I am speaking of UK here, but this applies to many other countries that don’t really make their own stuff)You can’t possibly entertain the thought of designing a LED driver yourself as the big multinational electronics corporations (who can buy components at far lower cost than you) have already got cheap drivers ready available off-the-shelf.You do have the alternative of going to China and buying the whole streetlight from the Chinese, or just buying a cheap LED driver designed by some huge Chinese Power supply company.However, there is one big snag……None of the LED drivers that you want to buy are actually fixed priced……that is, you have to negotiate the price with the vendor. The vendor wants to rip off as much money from you as they can…If you do not have engineering design level knowledge of a LED streetlight driver, then you are going to get ripped off…..because you simply will not understand the features of the prospective LED driver in order to use them as “haggling “ points.For example, you cannot properly haggle over the fee with a Chinese LED driver design company if you don’t know how to design a LED driver yourself.Also, you must be able to say to the vendor, that if they don’t knock the price down to £xxx, then you will just design one yourself instead…….and in order to make this look like a real threat, you need to have a stable of LED driver products that you have designed yourself……….in other words……You need LED Driver design capability in order to buy a LED driver off-the-shelf.…….The problem is, that if you are the sort of company that just buys in all your LED drivers, then you are not going to have the ability to design LED drivers….its a chicken and egg situation.And if you are in a country like UK, where there are no tariffs to foreign imports, and your engineering fraternity has died off so that you cannot even find a LED driver designer in UK, then you are in big trouble……..The only answer to this is that LED streetlight design must be taken over by the government, and they must undertake a program of LED driver design operations, so that the skill of LED driver design is “in-house”. Also, a surplus of LED driver designers must be trained up, in order that they may some day leave the government run company, and go and work for private LED streetlight companies, and ensure that they don’t have to pay much for their led drivers…….because otherwise the British taxpayer suffers from paying too much for the streetlights–No private company would do this….no private company would make enough investment to train up a large cohort of LED driver designers. –specially since they would be scared that the designers may end up working for their competitors in the same country….private companies are just too greedy and insecure….at least in UK they are.This is why the operation must be government runDo you agree?

author: ataradov
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 22, 2018, 06:33:44 pm
content: What are you talking about? You don't need to know how to design a power supply to be able negotiate a reasonable price. This is total nonsense.Apply this thinking to literally anything and see how ridiculous the outcome is.Also, the first time you buy something, you will get higher price. The price goes down the more you buy and your negotiating power goes up. You don't buy LED drivers for the whole county all at once.

author: Towger
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 22, 2018, 07:46:42 pm
content: He wants the British government to introduce an A Level in LED Driver design, using only UK manufactured components.

author: Gyro
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 22, 2018, 08:35:14 pm
content: Oh for heaven's sake Treez, stop double / triple /... posting this rubbish.https://www.eevblog.com/forum/chat/should-i-go-to-chinese-led-show-this-week/msg1835294/#msg1835294

author: Richard Crowley
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 22, 2018, 08:36:24 pm
content: There is no fixed-price for ANYTHING in 20K quantities. If you are buying that many, you will use standard business practices of sourcing, negotiating, and selecting vendor(s). This has nothing to do with streetlights.

author: DimitriP
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 22, 2018, 08:36:35 pm
content: Quotesomewhere in Ohio, they replaced traffic lights with LEDs, and since they were running cooler there was no way for the ice and snow to melt....fun times...

author: Simon
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: September 22, 2018, 08:52:52 pm
content: OK shows over, the opening post is a load of confused nonsense and as pointed out a repeat topic!