Common Problems and Countermeasures in the Installation of LED Street Lights

1. Analysis of the Advantages and Disadvantages of LED Street Lights

Compared with ordinary HPS street lights, LED street lights have higher efficiency, reaching 120-150lm/w. It can emit light in a direction, without diffuse reflection, and it is energy efficient. Durable, the longest service cycle can reach 50000h, without excessive maintenance costs.

At the same time, it has good color rendering and can truly present the true color of the object. Environmentally friendly and clean without any poison. No high voltage power supply is required. Power efficiency is up to 96%, 10% higher than higher pressure sodium lights, and can be continuously dimmed. There will be no danger of burning or explosion. Light color is stable.

However, LED street lights also have their own weaknesses, which are reflected in: poor road lighting uniformity, slow heat dissipation, high color temperature, and weak light penetration, which are not suitable for cities with heavy smog.

2. Analysis of the Problems Existing in the Installation of LED Street Lights

(1) Problems existing in both LED street lights and traditional street lights

LED street lights face many problems just like traditional street lights. For example, street lights are easily shaded by street trees, and the management of street lights is multi-departmental, resulting in untimely street light maintenance, lack of a unified plan for street light construction and management, backward street light supervision methods, and serious equipment and cable theft. Such problems have been elaborated and analyzed many times, and professional solutions have been proposed.

(2) About the damage of the LED light source

The car will generate strong vibrations while driving, and these vibrations will affect the LED street lights installed on both sides of the road to varying degrees. When the vibration frequency generated by the driving of the vehicle causes a certain component in the LED street light system to resonate, it will cause serious damage to the system. In addition, the lines inside the LED street light are connected in series, and if one damaged, the entire system will lose its lighting function. Another reason for the damage of LED street lights is that the protective shell of the electronic circuit will be damaged under the combined influence of multiple factors such as natural weather (exposure, rain, etc.) and human damage for a long time. At this time, rain or dust enters the inside of the protective case, which will cause irreparable damage to the internal circuit.

3. Solutions to Common Problems in the Installation of LED Street Lights

(1) The installation operation and electrical matching must meet the standards

(i) Pay attention to the shock resistance of accessories during transportation

Compared with traditional street lights, LED street lights have much better shock resistance, and there are no special requirements for transportation. However, during transportation, it is still necessary to do sufficient shockproof protection for the electrical accessories and connecting wires of the LED street light. When receiving the product, the electrical accessories of the LED street light must be strictly inspected first. Before installation, the power-on test should be done, and the installation should be carried out after passing the test, so as to reduce the economic loss caused by the transportation damage of the LED street light.

(ii) Pay attention to mechanical analysis during assembly

The LED street light is a light board module packaged by a plurality of low-power LED particles, and then assembled and formed. Compared with traditional street lights, its size and weight are greatly increased. Therefore, it is necessary to focus on the mechanical analysis of the light pole and light arm before assembly to ensure that it can meet the requirements of use in the harsh natural climate environment. At the same time, the installation of lights and lanterns should be carried out in strict accordance with the relevant standards and specifications and the manufacturer’s light installation specifications.

(iii) Improve the convenience of installation and maintenance

At present, the use of LED street lights is gradually expanding. This requires that the convenience of LED street light installation and maintenance should be fully considered during electrical installation. In addition, most of the current LED street lights have integrated light source and electrical accessories, but the service life of electrical accessories is much shorter than that of LED particles. Therefore, the convenience of maintenance of electrical accessories should be considered more during installation. The life advantage of LED street light products can be maximized, and the disadvantage of high cost of LED street light is reduced at the same time.

(iv) Strict requirements for power distribution

LED lights are very sensitive to current, and their lifespan is greatly affected by current. Therefore, when power distribution, it is required that the power distribution must meet the relevant requirements, so as to maximize the life of LED street lights, so as to achieve the purpose of energy saving by using LED street lights.

If the power distribution is not strictly in accordance with the standards, although compared with traditional street lights at the beginning, the energy saving effect of LED street lights is obvious, and the lighting effect is not much different from normal. However, due to the substandard power distribution, the use and maintenance costs of lights will increase significantly, which greatly reduces the economic benefits of LED street lights.

(v) Pay attention to the installation angle when installing

The LED street light module is assembled. In order to achieve the best energy-saving effect, most products have strictly calculated and designed the light distribution curve of their light sources according to the requirements of road lighting combined with the structure of lights. If you do not pay attention to the angle during installation, the energy-saving effect cannot be fully manifested. Therefore, the installation angle of the light arm should be strictly controlled during installation, otherwise the brightness of the road surface will be uneven and the lighting effect will be poor.

(vi) Pay attention to glare control and ambient ratio

Since the LED street light source adopts low-voltage DC power supply, the high-efficiency white light synthesized by GaN-based power blue LED and yellow has high brightness. Therefore, glare control is very important. At the same time, because the advantage of LED street lights is that they are easy to integrate to control the luminous angle and area, their light intensity is more used for road pavement lighting. This requires more attention to the environmental ratio required by national regulations when installing LED street lights.

(2) Adopt new energy

At present, solar energy is used in various fields as the cleanest energy source. The introduction of solar energy as a new energy into the street lighting system, with LED street lights, will achieve excellent results. This can not only reduce the consumption of electric energy, but also save the power supply line and grid, which greatly simplifies the street lighting system. And each street light is independent, which also brings great convenience to the subsequent management and maintenance work. In addition, wind energy can also be introduced to make up for the shortcoming of insufficient charging of solar cells caused by rainy weather. Combining solar energy and wind energy as the energy source of street lights will improve the lighting reliability of LED street lights.

 

(3) Improve the application of intelligent control system in LED street light control

There are many ways to control street lights. The traditional more commonly used manual control, time control, GSM short message control and so on. These methods have many problems, such as the detection results cannot be centralized, recorded and counted, and cannot meet the requirements of urban modernization.

The intelligent control system can completely solve the shortcomings of the traditional control methods of street lights. Taking the intelligent control system as an example, due to the characteristics of low speed, low power consumption and self-configuration of intelligent control, the complexity of street light system maintenance is greatly reduced. At the same time, the wide application of intelligent systems will improve the level of intelligence and informatization of road lighting systems, which can not only reduce the overall maintenance cost of street light control systems, but also greatly reduce power consumption.

Conclusion

At present, the world has entered a stage of energy scarcity. Effective energy-saving methods and the development and application of new energy are in full swing. The combination of LED street lights with solar technology and intelligent technology can be fully applied to the current road lighting system.

This article analyzes the problems that occur during the installation of LED street lights, and gives corresponding suggestions. Pay attention to the shock resistance of accessories when transporting LED street lights, pay attention to mechanical analysis when assembling, and pay attention to the convenience of maintenance when installing. When installing, the power distribution should be strictly required, pay attention to the installation angle, and pay attention to glare control and environmental ratio. It is hoped that LED street lights will play a huge role in the movement of energy saving and emission reduction.