# 300,000 lumen rotating beacon on Freedom Tower/WTC



## mega_lumens (Feb 23, 2014)

I wasn't sure where to post this, but past couple of weeks the Freedom Tower/WTC in NYC has activated its rotating LED beacon on top of its spire. It's very bright and distinguishable. I see it from my window in another borough. I can't seem to find details and photos on the design of this beacon. What LEDs and how many did they use to produce 300,000 lumens? How does the design avoid blinding pilots? The rotation of the beacon is slow. I counted a flash of the beam every 13 seconds. I saw some photos of the mirror optics assembly and it looks very odd, but massive in scale! 

http://www.allledlighting.com/author.asp?section_id=560&doc_id=559438


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## Hot Brass (Feb 24, 2014)

mega_lumens said:


> I wasn't sure where to post this, but past couple of weeks the Freedom Tower/WTC in NYC has activated its rotating LED beacon on top of its spire. It's very bright and distinguishable. I see it from my window in another borough. I can't seem to find details and photos on the design of this beacon. What LEDs and how many did they use to produce 300,000 lumens? How does the design avoid blinding pilots? The rotation of the beacon is slow. I counted a flash of the beam every 13 seconds. I saw some photos of the mirror optics assembly and it looks very odd, but massive in scale!
> 
> http://www.allledlighting.com/author.asp?section_id=560&doc_id=559438



Hi: I did not see any lux figures.....gotta be up there! HB


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## inetdog (Feb 24, 2014)

The lux figures depend on where you measure it. Hopefully somewhere that the beam intersects the ground or a building.


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## rice81 (Mar 28, 2014)

Did nobody else see the comment about it costing $1000 per day to run??? Seems to me that at only 50 lumens per watt, for example and $0.10 per KWH running 6 hrs per day would be about $3.60 but perhaps it is being run by the federal government so they allow for some lack of efficiency.


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## PhotonWrangler (Mar 29, 2014)

From this news report it looks like a color-washed tower with a regular tower lighting beacon at the top...?

**Edit** Ok, now I see the rotating beacon.


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## P_A_S_1 (Mar 29, 2014)

Noticed it for the first time a week or so ago, while going westbound on the LIE, pretty cool. It's like the Fire island Light House on steroids .


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## SemiMan (Mar 29, 2014)

rice81 said:


> Did nobody else see the comment about it costing $1000 per day to run??? Seems to me that at only 50 lumens per watt, for example and $0.10 per KWH running 6 hrs per day would be about $3.60 but perhaps it is being run by the federal government so they allow for some lack of efficiency.




The comment was an estimate by the author that was obviously wrong.

Semiman


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