An infinite-life bulb isn’t the only possible solution. Towers can be built so that attached components can be lowered to ground level and then raised again similarly to a flag on a flag pole.
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But not all that cautious. His choices of anchor points is both nonregulation (below knees) and risky – when he clips onto the top outside bar of the form he runs the risk of a gust blowing him out away from the ladder by the clip sliding and then dropping to a point where he can’t reach back. Worse yet, that puts a serious load with a lot of leverage on the weld that he’s counting on for his life.
Yeah, I’ve climbed towers. Not that high, but I’ve done it in ski boots.
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It really sucks when you’re half way back down and realize you forgot to take the selfie. I’m glad he remembered.
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That would make for an interesting interpretation of the local header “Was Ortiz’s selfie with Obama sponsored by Samsung?”
How wide would the ground circumference have to be for a 1500’ high tower to telescope down to the hight of a scissor lift? And what do you do with the antennae hanging off it?
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Had some tower jockeys in town for a few months, last year, they all had selfies on the highest towers, Scary as F***. Even on a cell phone screen.
Nah. You just pull the old lightbulb down the lightbulb conduit along the middle of the tower, pop a new one in and crank it back up.
Or, no, no, even better. Laser blast the dead bulb into dust whilst it’s still atop, then use the lightbulb conduit along the middle of the tower to hoist up a new one.
Preferably with laser power.
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Hmm, drone pilot might not want to advertise the fact that this is a 1500’ tower - http://www.popularmechanics.com/technology/military/planes-uavs/this-is-how-the-faa-regulates-american-airspace-15894142
You can’t just leave that hanging there; let’s hear the story!
Not much to tell – I’m a ski patroller and part of our training is to climb towers if necessary for emergency lift evacuations. When you ski to the tower, you’re not going to change to climbing gear when you arrive.
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A drone flying next to a tower will not be likely to interfere with a manned airplane. That’s why the lightbulb is there - to keep bigger aircraft away from it.
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Please tell me that at least they let you take the skis off.
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This thread should be titled “How many Boing Boing commenters does it take to design an easily replaceable tower lightbulb?”.
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Until you realize that the driver that creates the low voltage power an LED uses is only warrantied for three to five years.
LEDs might last forever, but the bits that provide them power certainly don’t.
So what you’re saying is that you should put a light bulb on a done, and you’ll be able to fly any where you like.
And since it keeps planes away you can get a bunch of drones together and form a Tholian Web around planes taping them forever!
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Because they are designed like crap. It is not a rocket science to design a power supply that lasts for decades. Just don’t skimp on parts, especially the electrolytic capacitors, and rate the parts and heatsinks so it runs cold. In case of the tower, you can also run the constant-current DC cable right to the LEDs and have the PSU on the ground level.
That is true. It still may injure some tender feelings of a bureaucrat for whom The Holy Rules are more than the reality itself.
I don’t understand the selfie hate.
At least Kansas (or Nebraska, or Oklahoma, or wherever) looks a bit more interesting from up there…
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Some places get remotely interesting only from distance.
Sure. After all, climbing in skis is hard on the skis. No guarantee they’ll still be there when you come down, though.
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Or as my son the optical-sciences grad student [1] points out, why not just run a light pipe up the core of the tower and have the light source at the base? Prisms and mirrors at the top have a much longer MTBF than any light source.
[1] I’m an EE
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