Several things you need to know about LED Street Light

Several things you need to know about LED Street Light

What’s LED street light?

LED street light is a lamp composed of a light-emitting diode(LED). And it will be installed on top of a pole that is used to provide light on roadways, sidewalks, parking areas, or other exterior areas. It’s an Infrastructure construction unit in guarantees safety in the road, residential, or other exterior areas. For more led street light problems please read below!

main street lighting
led street light 150w

Kinds of LED street light

According to the difference of heatsink, the LED street light can be with modular design or a full die-casting aluminum design. Modular design LED street light has the advantage like easy replacement and good heat dissipation. ZGSM H series is one street light with a module which is developed in 2013 and it’s still in hot sale. However, street lights with all die-casting aluminum become more popular these years. For example, ZGSM K series street led light is marketing in 2017 while the Rifle series is coming out in 2021.

According to the difference of LED chips, LED streetlights can be either with SMD or COB. SMD refers to the term “Surface Mounted Device” LEDs, which are the utmost shared LEDs in the market. COB is short for “Chip On Board”. Many LED chips are packed together as a lighting module and it looks like a panel when it’s turned on. And all ZGSM LED street lights are adopting SMD design. Because as our understanding, SMD is more efficient, more reliable, and more conducive to street light work than COB.

Application of LED street light

LED Road lamps can be used for many different applications.

  • Primary roads, secondary roads, and highways need extra light for safety. For these roads, the lighting class requirement is normally from M1 to M6.
  • Pedestrian streets, cycleways, emergency lanes, other road areas lying along the carriageway, and residential roads. For these applications, the P lighting class(P1 to P6) is normally required.
  • Other exterior lighting, like the schoolyard, parking area, urban square, and outside of the factory. For these areas, you can send us a drawing so we can make the lighting design accordingly.

Difference between LED and traditional street light

High efficiency

Firstly, LED street lights is using LEDs as their lighting source. Compared with a traditional light source, the LEDs are more efficient. It can save up to 80% energy which is eco-friendly, saving LED street lamp costs.

No toxic elements

LED street lights contain less toxic elements. And all ZGSM LED street lights have got the RoHS certificate, which means you can use our product without any worry.

Fewer lights needed

With high efficiency, it means we can use a street light LED with less wattage to light up the road. But we should also pay attention to the light distribution of LED street lights. Light distribution is the projected pattern of light that a lighting fixture will disperse onto a surface. With good lighting distribution, we can use less energy than other LED street lights, which LED street lights more efficient.

Long life span

LED street lights normally with long service time. We can explain it in the following two aspects.

  • The 70% lumen maintenance lifetime of LEDs can reach 100000hrs.
  • The LED driver failure rate is very low. The MBTF rating of the Inventronics EUM series driver can reach over 200000hrs.

All of these make LED Lights last up to six times longer than other types of lights, reducing the time of replacements. A longer life span means fewer lights and fewer resources for a municipality to run a street lighting project.

The common problem of LED street light

Driven by profit and unfair competition, Street lighting products may have some problems. LED street lights problems include LED driver failure, poor LED chips, poor SPD function, lower IP/IK, unreasonable heat dissipation, poor powder coating, poor lighting distribution, low efficiency, and poor package.

Because of the length limits, I cannot list all details in this article. If you are interested, please read our another blog 《What are the common problems of LED street lights?》 to get more information.

The wattage of LED street light

Wattage is important to the factor of LED street lights. Normally the higher the wattage, the brighter the light. But when the street light is installed, the lux(maintained average illuminance) on the ground and maintained average luminance on the ground are also determined by the height of the pole, the width of the road, pole distance, boom length, boom angle, and distance between pole to the road.

“Depending on whether they are illuminating a residential neighborhood, major road, or town center, the lamps used in streetlights vary in both size and power consumption (usually between 35 and 250 Watts)” It is often believed that the average wattage of a streetlight is around 80 watts.“ Outdoor Lighting Handbook.

To find suitable wattage, you have to check the lighting design tools. Except for the wattages of street lights, their lighting distribution is the main factor that has an influence on lighting results. We have listed below three options to choose the right wattage for your projects.

Quickly choose by checking the wattage of existing lamps

For old roadway lights, it’s either with a high-pressure sodium bulb or a metal halide bulb. Replacing a 250W high-pressure sodium street light, normally 100W LED street light is enough. We suggest the wattage of LED street lights can be 25% to 40% of existing high-pressure sodium street light wattage.

Quickly choose by checking the height of the pole.

The rough estimate wattage corresponds to the pile height and road width as below. These are just for reference, it may change according to the final lighting design.

  • 10w, suitable for pole height 2.5m-3m
  • 15-20w, suitable for pole height 3m-4.5m
  • 20-30w, suitable for pole height 5m-6m (5m suitable for road width 6-8m, 6m suitable for road width 8-10m, 2 lanes)
  • 30-50w, suitable for pole height 6m-7m (suitable for road width 7-8m, 2 lanes)
  • 50-80w, suitable for pole height 7m-8m (suitable for road width 8-10m, 2-3 lanes)
  • 80-100w, suitable for pole height 8m-10m (suitable for road width 8-10m, 2-3 lanes)
  • 120w, 150w, 200W, suitable for pole heights above 10-12 meters

Wattage as per lighting design

Before lighting design, we would like to know the height of the pole, the width of the road, pole distance, boom length, boom angle, and distance between pole to the road. It’s better than you can provide as many details as possible.

Btw, you have to provide the lighting requirement for the road which we call the lighting classification. Normally it’s clearly requested in the tender document. Or according to EU standards, it depends on different variable conditions, such as speed, traffic volume and/or composition, ambient luminance, weather, etc.

Below is an example of how to choose the right lighting classification (M lighting classes) for motorized traffic.

lighting classification

After weighting value selection, we will get SWV(selected weighting value) and find the M4 lighting class is a suitable one. Then we can use this for your lighting design. Below is the table regarding the requirement (Lav, Uo, UI, TI) for different M lighting classes.

lighting classification-2

Since the Lav (maintained average luminance) is not the same for different M lighting classes, the wattage for the same road condition is not always the same. Below is a table for your reference, you can see we have made the lighting design with our Rifle series under 8m pole, 35m pole distance, and 6m width road based on different lighting classes. For M3, we have to use 70W, and for M5, we just need to use 30W.

Pole heightPole distanceRoad widthLighting ClassWattage
8m35m6mM370W
8m35m6mM450W
8m35m6mM530W

PS: We assume the boom length is 0m and the boom angle is 0 degrees.

Important parameters of LED street light

Wattage

In the above section, we have shared some information with you about the wattage. This is mainly determined by your project requirement. It’s important because you can get a better price with lower wattage. Btw, the lower wattage you can achieve, the better chance you can get your project. Because the wattage and price are important factors in tender evaluation.

LED driver

LED driver matters the function which you want to realize with your street light. You can find the reason which LED driver is important for street lights in our article 《What are the common problems of LED street lights?》

Here we just show you how to quickly choose the suitable LED driver for you. Or you can check How to choose the right LED driver for your LED light.

  • 1. Class I or Class II, If Class II, it’s better to go with Inventronics.
  • 2. Timer dimming, Meanwell, Inventronics, or others are all ok for you. But for timer (virtual midnight), it’s better to go with Inventronics
  • 3. For other functions, like dimming, OLC, NTC or Auxiliary output, you can choose accordingly.

Since below is a brief introduction regarding function, you can check with us with your requirement so we can help you find the right/suitable LED driver.

BrandMeanwellInventronicsOsram or Philips
StockZGSM have a few in stockZGSM have them in stockAs per the order request
Delivery timeGoodGoodNot very good
Other functions
Class I/IIClass IClass I or Class IIClass I or Class II
Dimming1-10V, resistance, Timer, Dali1-5V, 1-10V, PWM, Dali1-10V, Dali
TimerTimer(standard)Timer(standard or virtual midnight)Timer(standard or virtual midnight)
OLCNoYes for some seriesYes for some series
NTCNoYes for some seriesYes for some series
Auxiliary outputNoYes for some series (motion sensor or Zhaga)Yes for some series (motion sensor or Zhaga)

LED chips

LED chips play a big role in determining the quality of LED light.  For ZGSM LED lights street, it matters the stability and brightness. For the importance of stability, you can find the details in our article 《What are the common problems of LED street lights?》 And LED chips are a master factor for the brightness of LED street lights. We have 3030 and 5050 for your options. 3030 LED chips are an option with higher cost performance. As to 5050 chips, it’s a good option for an energy management contract.

Lens/optics

ZGSM LED Streetlight provides a wide variety of optical light distributions suitable for all architectural, roadway, and area lighting applications to get better light uniformity. For example, in our Rifle series, we have T2S53001, T3S53002, T3S53003, T2M53007, T3M53009, T2S55004, T3M55005, T3S55006, T2M55008, T3M55010 optics. And if you have any other special requirements on the lighting distribution, you can check with us as it can be customized.

CCT

CCT (Correlated Color Temperature) is the measure used to describe the relative color appearance of the LED light source. CCT indicates whether a light source appears more yellow, white, or bluer. CCT is given in kelvins (unit of absolute temperature). 2700K is “Warm”, 4000K is “Neutral” and 5700K is “Cool”. Below is the typical light color.

CRI

CRI represents the quality of light and its ability to reproduce the colors of objects faithfully. The ideal CRI is 100, but for LED street lights normally 70 is enough. And we also provide the option CRI80, which makes object colors “realistically” or “naturally”. While for indoor lighting, CRI 80 is a basic requirement, and the higher the better.

How to install LED street lights?

Take the ZGSM Rifle series as an example. Before installation, please read our instruction manual carefully and keep it for future use.

  • Step 1, Open the outer packaging, remove the packing materials on the lamp body, take out the lamp.
  • Step 2, We firstly need to fasten the fitter at desired tilt angle onto the street light with screws.
  • Step 3, Loosen the buckle, open the upper cover of a street light.
  • Step 4, Make the wire pass into the street light carefully. Tighten the external power cable with an M16 connector. Connect wires to the knife switch or terminal block and be sure that connections are correct (Brown to Line, Blue to Natural, Yellow/Green to Ground).
  • Step 5, Insert the lamp into the pole, Fasten the 2pcs M10X25 screws with Allen Wrench. Close the cover and clips. Switch the voltage on and check to see that the street light works properly. Recommended torque: 17Nm ± 1Nm

Rifle street light installation steps

LED street light price

Price reference of ZGSM 35W or 40W street light

Model No.ZGSM-LD35KSZGSM-ST17-40SZGSM-ST18-40S
LED driverEUM-050S150DGEUM-050S150DGEUM-050S150DG
Wattage40W40W40W
LED chipsLumileds 3030Lumileds 3030Lumileds 3030
Weight5.9KG4.6KG2.0KG
Unit PriceUSD93.33USD70.63USD47.14

The price composition ratio of the above street light

Model No.ZGSM-LD35KSZGSM-ST17-40SZGSM-ST18-40S
LED driverUSD20.00USD20.00USD20.00
LED module(LEDs, PCB, lens)USD10.00USD8.00USD5.00
Surge protection deviceUSD6.00USD6.00USD6.00
 Lamp housingUSD45.00USD30.00USD14.00
OthersUSD12.33USD6.63USD2.14

PS: above is just a reference for you to better understand the price composition of street lamps (More LED street light cost problem, please contact our sales).

As you can see, the street lights price is mainly made up of LED drivers, LED modules, SPD, and lamp housing. The main functions of the above street light are almost the same. But when you look into the datasheet of our K series, Rifle series, and Nova series, you will find the differences.

Firstly, the weight of lamps differs from each other dramatically. K series is with maximum weight, while Nova series is with minimum weight. This is the main reason why there are so big differences in price.

Secondly, the K series is with Knife switches, while the Rifle series are not. And LED module and LED driver of the K series can be easily removed for replacement.

Lastly, the Nova series is without adjustable sleeves, which means it can only be horizontally installed. However, both the K series and Rifle series can either be vertically or horizontally installed. Btw, the efficiency of Rifles is the highest.

In a word, you will get what you pay off. For the K series, the design of street lighting is what I personally like most. For the Rifle series, I think it’s with the best cost performance. And for Nova, if your budget is not sufficient, the Nova series is an ideal option. If you have any led street lights problems, please contact our sales or technical staff. If more information regarding street light costs includes led street lights cost and maintenance cost, please refer to How much do the street lights cost.

How to realize smart street lighting control?

ZGSM also offers a smart street lighting control solution which is a remote management solution that ensures that the right amount of light is provided where and when needed. It allows the city to turn on or off, set the dimming level, check the status of lamps and monitor the data system of their street lights. Through these functions, street lighting control systems can improve energy efficiency, detect lighting failures and solve other maintenance issues in real-time.

Below is a schematic diagram for you to quickly understand how street lights are controlled by the Zigbee system.

Hardware: Street light, Zigbee single lamp controller, gateway

Software: Street lighting management platform/app, cloud

  • Firstly, we need a street light with a 5pin or 7pin NEMA socket. And we have to install the Zigbee single lamp controller on the NEMA socket.
  • Secondly, we have to install the gateway at the desired position which can make a connection with these Zigbee single lamp controllers. And the gateway should be with GPRS/3G/4G/WIFI/Ethernet connection.
  • At last, you should get web access to the whole street lighting system, which will allow you to automatically or manually monitor and control lighting performance

After these steps, you can change the setting on the platform, then the gateway will send a signal to Zigbee single lamp controller, and the street light will receive the signal from Zigbee single lamp controller to act(dimming, turn on/off, or others). Through the above description, I hope you have understood how street light works with the smart control system.

For the Zigbee lighting control system, the cost and the complexity will keep away one who is new to this system. It seems not very complicated, but there are lots of things we need to learn for the smart lighting control system. If you want to get more details or other street light problems with the smart system, please contact us. Btw the combination of timer dimming and daylight dimming will also make your light smart and energy-efficient, if you are interested please contact with ZGSM Team for details.

Rated Products

Related Blogs

Related Cases

People also ask

The concept of smart cities is gaining acceptance. It could look at initiatives to make urban areas more livable and truly sustainable. This is a solution-driven approach where emerging technologies work together to improve infrastructure without harming the environment. Street lighting is the core infrastructure for installing smart city systems, and LED street lighting offers the opportunity to establish connected, efficient and safe urban lighting networks.
Implementing LED street lighting systems can bring immediate benefits to smart cities because of their energy efficiency and long service life. They are promoted as a sustainable lighting option because they do not harm the environment and reduce carbon emissions. As such, it is becoming an important complement to smart cities as they promote a more environmentally friendly environment.
Advantages of switching to LED street lamps:

  1. Less toxicity and better lighting:
    As smart cities prioritize human health and sustainability — addressing air quality, reducing traffic congestion, and improving health outcomes are some of the key issues that need to be addressed. Unlike traditional high-pressure sodium lamps, leds don’t contain toxic mercury or other unhealthy chemicals. They open quickly and don’t produce ultraviolet light that attracts bugs.
    LED technology is also rapidly upgrading in terms of luminous efficiency, color quality, optical design and thermal management. LED lights create a daylight atmosphere and make nighttime use of public transport easier by improving road visibility. The wide, consistent lighting pattern ensures residents feel safer waiting for buses at night or walking to their destinations.
  2. Economic benefits:
    The cutting-edge technology of LED systems makes them a more energy efficient and cost-effective lighting option. Because they need less energy, street lighting costs are down 50 to 70 percent. In addition, LED street lamp life up to 20 years, strong controllability. Implementation pays for itself due to energy savings and reduced maintenance costs. So switching to leds is a smart move for any city that aspires to be smart.
  3. Environmental benefits:
    Leds emit very little heat and consume very little energy — qualities that make them more environmentally friendly and a sustainable lighting option. Leds are twice as energy efficient as traditional fluorescent bulbs and are touted as the standard for green lighting. Their longer service life could significantly reduce landfill and bulb disposal costs, thereby reducing their carbon footprint.

In many villages, it is difficult to choose the specifications of LED street lamps, such as the height of lamp poles and the power of LED lamps. Some of the professional LED street lights problems are really difficult for outsiders. Since they are professional issues, they still need to be understood. To be answered by professionals.
First, we need to know the length of led street lighting.
If the lighting time is relatively long, it is not suitable to choose high-power LED street lamps. Because the longer the lighting time, the more heat emitted by the LED lamp holder, and the heat dissipation of the high-power LED lamp holder is relatively large, plus the lighting time is long, so the overall dispersion is very large, which will affect the service life of the LED lamp. Therefore, the choice of LED street lamp power must consider the lighting time.
Secondly, determine the height of rural LED street lamps
Light poles of different heights match LED street lamps of different powers. The higher the general height, the greater the power of LED street lamps. Generally, the height of LED street lamps installed in rural areas is between 5 meters and 8 meters, so the power of the optional LED street lamp head is 20W to 90W.
Three, understand the width of rural roads
Generally speaking, the width of the road will affect the height of the lamp pole, and the height of the lamp pole will affect the power of the LED lamp head. The required illumination should be calculated according to the actual width of rural streets to choose lamps, rather than blindly choose high-power LED lamps. For example, the width of rural roads is relatively small, but the LED street light you choose is relatively large, so it will also make pedestrians feel dazzled, so be sure to choose according to the width of rural roads.
conclusion
Rural roads are generally between 4 and 8 meters wide. It can be concluded from the above three points that the height of the lamp pole suitable for rural areas is 5 meters or 6 meters, and the power of the streetlight LED suitable for rural roads is 20W or 30W. These two kinds of power are also used more in rural areas, so the power choice of 20W~30W rural LED street lamps is more appropriate.

  1. Power of LEDs
    There are more internal LED beads when LED light power increases.
    If two lamp beads have the same brightness, then LED lights with more internal lamp beads must have a larger brightness.
    If two LEDs have the same brightness, then LED lights with more internal lamp beads must have a larger brightness.
  2. Luminous efficacy of LED lamp beads inside LED street light fixture
    The brightness of the whole LED lamp fixture is reflected by the luminance efficiency of the LED lamp beads.
    The brightness of LED street lighting increases with the luminous effectiveness of the LED lamp beads when the power of the LED lamps is the same.
  3. LED street light fixture heat dissipation
    The brilliance of LED street lighting is significantly influenced by how much heat they dissipate.
    Good heat dissipation will result in more steady internal current and overall brightness for LED street lighting.
    LED bulbs will have an excessively high internal temperature if the heat dissipation performance is subpar.
    The light degradation of LED chips is accelerated by excessive internal temperature, which will quickly result in dull LED lights.
  4. Series and parallel form of internal LED lamp beads
    The input current needed is comparatively low and the brightness of LED street lighting will increase if the parallel number of LED lamp beads exceeds the series number.
    On the other hand, LED streetlights won’t be as brilliant.
  5. LED Driver and LED Chips quality
    Brand manufacturers use superior materials and manufacturing processes to make LED lamp beads and power supplies, which are of higher quality than those made in small workshops.
    Of course, LED street light fixtures provide a superior overall brightness impact.

The height of street lights often varies depending on the lighting area, type of road, road width, pole spacing, type of lamp, and lighting requirements. Streetlight poles are usually 8 to 50 feet (2.4-15.2 m) tall. 8-12 feet suitable for yard or parkway lighting, 13-40 feet for general road lighting, lamp posts over 40 feet are considered high masts and are generally used for roundabout and conflict area lighting.

Author introduction

About the author
Author

Hello Customers,

My name is Taylor Gong, I’m the product manager of ZGSM Tech. I have been in the LED lights industry for more than 13 years. Good at lighting design, street light system configuration, and bidding technology support. Feel free to contact us. I’m happy to provide you with the best service and products.

Email: [email protected] | WhatsApp: +8615068758483