Installation, Inspection, Maintenance, and Troubleshooting
Installation
Installation begins with a plan review, a utility locate through 811, and verification of foundations, conduit, and pull boxes before poles go up. Check anchor bolt torque, plumb, signal alignment, and clearance to traffic and power lines. The cabinet must sit on a stable base with proper grounding, drainage, and access. Follow the plans, the manufacturer instructions, MUTCD, and the NEC.
Inspection and testing
Inspection is documented, not remembered. Perform point-to-point wiring checks, ground resistance and insulation resistance tests, loop resistance and inductance checks, flash tests, conflict tests, detector tests, preemption tests, and a full functional run of every phase and overlap. Verify timing against the approved plan and confirm pedestrian intervals. Record results and correct deficiencies before turn-on.
Maintenance and troubleshooting
Preventive maintenance covers cabinet cleaning and filters, battery and UPS checks, fans, hinges, connectors, LED modules, backplates, span wire, and vegetation. Troubleshoot in a logical order: confirm power, then breakers and fuses, then load switch output, then field cable, then the head or detector. Use a meter, loop tester, TDR, and controller diagnostics.
Traps
Flashing operation is a fail-safe, not a normal mode. The conflict monitor is never jumped out to keep traffic moving. A ground rod alone does not prove a good ground. "It worked yesterday" is not a test result.
Rule of thumb
Test at the load, not at the source. Worked example: one head dark in a phase while others in that phase are lit points to the load switch output, the field cable, or the LED module, not to the controller card.