When I first moved into this house I installed a 100 watt High Pressure Sodium "dusk till dawn" light on a pole next to the driveway. It worked good for a few years, but then started to turn on and off randomly. I replaced the bulb, and that cured it for about a week...troubleshooting revealed the ballast was messed up. I got a great deal on a mercury vapor light with the same mounting pattern on ebay, so I just swapped them and put the sodium light in storage. I recently decided to put a dusk till dawn light on my shop, and thought why not reuse the old fixture that has been collecting dust? I ordered a M58 ballast (will run a 175 watt metal halide or mercury vapor lamp), a 175 watt metal halide bulb, and a mogul base socket online, all which came to about $65.
Unfortunately I didn't take any pictures during the real "technical stuff", but the only tricky part was I had to tack weld the new ballast mounting bracket (not big enough to span mounting holes) to the old one that came with the fixture. I also had to enlarge the hole in the reflector to fit over the new base socket. I reused the old photocell and mounted it in the shop for a week long test. It fired right up, and at first it looked like a normal MV light...but as the bulb heats up it changes from a greenish light to a blinding white light. This is not something you would want to put up in an area with a lot of houses nearby...the complaints would probably flood in.
Custom Security Light
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Scottscoaled
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Dang Robb! Why you wasting money on that old school lighting drama! New school is replacing with all led. I just changed out some for a friend. He changed 250 watters into 28 watt LED floods. While the light doesn;t seem as bright during dusk, they certainly get the job done the rest of the night. 
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I'm On Fire
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WHAT!?!? Where do you get that stuff? Isn't it...."DANGEROUS"?Rob R. wrote:I guess I am old school, hell I even burn coal in my house!!
I've seen those lights in old warehouses, they take damn near forever to come on but when they do man are they bright.