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A comment on LED stoplights not emitting enough heat to melt snow covering the lights.

Re:LED stoplights not emitting enough heat to melt snow cove... by cr0sh on Thursday December 07, 2017 @12:41PM (#15872108)
It'd be a bit complex, but why not spin the lens with a motor at high speed, like a clear view screen on a ship?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clear_view_screen

Actually, maybe it would be simpler than I first thought:

1. Mount the lens using v-shaped rollers on the edges (three would be sufficient)

2. Along the edge of the lens, attach permanent magnets - a ring of magnets with alternating polarity, NSNSNS...

3. Coils along the edges (might even be able to do it with printed circuit coils) energized, interacting with the magnets to spin the lens.

Essentially, you're making the lens operate as the rotor of a high-speed brushless rotor. One could probably trivially implement a prototype of this using hardware store parts over the weekend.

In fact, this seems like such a simple solution, I wouldn't be surprised if there isn't a patent already out there describing it.

If not - consider this submission of mine "prior art" I guess - anybody at YC want to fund a startup? /lol

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Re:LED stoplights not emitting enough heat to melt snow cove... by gbba on Thursday December 07, 2017 @12:58PM (#15872316)
Moving parts are typically a very vulnerable point of failure. Traffic lights must have high uptime and require low maintenance.
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Re:LED stoplights not emitting enough heat to melt snow cove... by Myztiq on Thursday December 07, 2017 @01:07PM (#15872423)
Or, use a heated panel. Reposting a link another commenter added:

https://products.currentbyge.com/transportation-lighting/led...

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Re:LED stoplights not emitting enough heat to melt snow cove... by rjmunro on Thursday December 07, 2017 @01:05PM (#15872410)
Why not? It would freeze between the spinning lens and the LED units. It would require maintenance or break down.

You could just use a small heating element to reproduce some of the heat of the old bulb.

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Re:LED stoplights not emitting enough heat to melt snow cove... by saas_sam on Thursday December 07, 2017 @12:55PM (#15872270)
Makes sense, but wouldn't it be cheaper to stick a motor on the light to vibrate and detach the snow/ice?
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Re:LED stoplights not emitting enough heat to melt snow cove... by Johnny555 on Thursday December 07, 2017 @01:48PM (#15872810)
In cold weather a car windshield can ice over at 60mph without defroster heat, I don't think a vibrating light housing will stop freezing rain from building up.

There is one thing that is proven to work in a wide variety of situations, is easy to supply, has no moving parts: heat. And there are already solutions out there to provide heat.

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