Canobie Lake Park tech notes and wireless

Canboie’s famous carousel with mechanical music maker has a remarkable amount of LED-replaced lights:

36 sections * (5 + 15 + 12 + 18) + (49 * 8) lights/section

That’s about 2192 lights on the carousel.

If we assume the legacy incandescent lighting was 15 Watts each, that would be 32.9 kW of lighting on one carousel! I think the incandescent lighting consumed more than 7 watts/light because that’s what old night lights consumed. In any case, about 20 - 30 kW seems a reasonable estimate.

LED replacement for the carousel lighting would use about 10% of incandescent power, so nowadays that’s still 2-3 kW – more than an electric oven! If we assume a 10 horsepower motor, that would be roughly 60 amps at 230 Vac single phase, for about 14 kW motor power.

So, an LED-retrofitted carousel might draw about 2 kW sitting still, and 16 kW while spinning. If we assume 3 hours/day of lighted operation, and 6 hours/day spinning and $0.10/kW electric rate, then the electricity cost to run the carousel is estimated at.

(3 * 2 + 6 * 14) * 0.1 = $9.00 / day with LED lighting

(3 * 20 + 6 * 14) * 0.1 = $14.40 / day with incandescent lighting

However, one must consider the considerable labor cost of relamping the carousel. Relamping labor is one of the considerable cost savings for commercial LED light upgrades. Consider the cost of relamping on an incandescent Ferris wheel!

Two-way radio: Canobie Lake Park uses VHF (150 MHz) Motorola CP series portables.

GMRS repeaters on 462.550 and 462.575 (not park-related) were audible. Because of the rural location and spread out nature of the park, simplex (direct) FRS/GMRS radios work well.

Canobie Lake Park’s maintenance of equipment made before the World Wars is impressive. Several pieces were made by W.F. Mangels Co., of Coney Island, NY.

Bumper Cars: Barbieri Azzera (spelling?)