Working drawings for outdoor lighting: plan, schedule of poles and floodlight masts, details

What the set consists of

The working drawings of site lighting come in two parts. The first is the main set of drawings for the electrical installation work: it has its own mark, which in the Russian-language version of the design documentation system is ЭН. The second is the sketch drawings of general views of non-standard structures on which luminaires and electrical equipment are mounted.

The main set can be issued as one document or as several separate ones. In the second case the base mark is followed by a serial number of the document after a dot: for example, general data is the first document and the lighting plan the second. Separate documents get a list of documents and a reference to the general data.

The site lighting plan

The working drawings of the general plan serve as the base for the plan. Fragments are drawn at 1:200 and 1:500. That is enough to tie every pole to the ground and to count the line lengths.

The plan shows poles with the luminaires mounted on them, and poles that carry overhead lines. Luminaires on buildings and structures and those hung on cables are shown separately, as are masts and towers with floodlights. Next come the electrical devices that feed the lighting, the lighting and control networks (if control is remote), earthing and other necessary devices, and the pipe crossings for cables under roads.

Every pole and floodlight mast gets a position number, which the schedule then repeats. Letter-and-number designations go next to the supply and control sources, and for luminaires and floodlights the phase of the network they are connected to is given.

Dimensioning is a separate matter. The dimension to a pole or mast is taken from the building coordinate grid, from road axes, from the outer face of the walls of a building or structure, or from another landmark on the site. Distances between pole axes are given in metres. If poles on a straight stretch stand in sequence at equal spacing, the spacing is written only at the ends of the stretch.

The schedule of poles and floodlight masts

This is the table from which poles and masts are ordered and luminaires are bought. It is filled in from the plan: each row is a position that stands on the plan.

For a manufacturer the schedule matters because it shows which pole is standard and which has to be made to a separate drawing: the designation column holds the code of the standard solution or of the document for a non-standard structure.

Non-standard details and sketch drawings

Standard solutions are not redrawn in the set; they are referred to. But if a pole, bracket, head or luminaire platform is made non-standard, the drawing of the detail is part of the main set: views and sections needed for installation, with item positions, installation dimensions and a specification. It is part of the ЭН set, not an appendix.

The non-standard structure itself first appears as a sketch of the general view. It is made in the scope sufficient to develop the next documentation, from which the structure is manufactured. From sketch to product there are several more steps: refining the calculation, splitting into shipping marks, parts, welds, protective coating.

For lighting poles, floodlight masts, brackets and heads those steps are the KM and KMD drawings. So the sketches in the lighting design, the non-standard details and the schedule of poles and masts are input data for us. We prepare KM and KMD drawings; the rules for them are described in the articles on KMD drawings, KM and KMD drawing rules and what KMD is.

What is not in the lighting set

The main ЭН set contains neither the calculation of the pole for wind load nor foundation drawings: the list of components above does not include them. The design documentation system provides separate marks of main sets for that: reinforced concrete structures, anticorrosion protection of structures, and detailing drawings of metal structures.

In practice this means that from the plan and the schedule alone a manufacturer cannot determine the sections, the wall thickness or the way of fixing. These come from the pole calculation, which depends on the wind region, the height, and the weight and windage of the fittings. On calculation and foundations see the articles on lighting pole design, lighting pole foundations and technical requirements for poles. Corrosion protection is covered in the article on corrosion protection.

What to pass to the pole manufacturer

If the lighting design already exists, from it we need the plan with positions and dimensions, the schedule of poles and masts, the drawings of non-standard details and the sketches of structures. Data for the calculation is needed in addition: the town or wind region, the mounting height, and the quantity, weight and windage of the fittings at each position.

We prepare KM and KMD drawings, make lighting poles and floodlight masts, and do hot-dip galvanising and powder coating: KM and KMD design, steel fabrication. On brackets and crossarms see the article on brackets, crossarms and heads; on choosing a floodlight mast, the article Which floodlight mast to choose. Erection on site is done by our partner construction company.

Standards and validity

• DSTU B A.2.4-18:2008 «System of design documentation for construction. Electric lighting of the territory of industrial enterprises. Working drawings»: in force from 1 January 2010, it replaced the Soviet standard on the same subject in Ukraine.
• DSTU 9243.4:2023 «System of design documentation for construction. Basic requirements for design documentation»: in force from 1 April 2024 in place of DSTU B A.2.4-4:2009.
• DSTU 9286:2024 «Rules for the preparation of design and working documentation for metal building structures» (for KM and KMD) and DBN V.2.5-28:2018 «Natural and artificial lighting» (illuminance norms).

The article describes the established structure of the set. Projects made under Soviet standards have the same logic, but for new projects the details come from the text of the current DSTU, which is not reproduced here. The standard concerns the territories of industrial enterprises; for streets and parks the composition of the set is refined by the design brief.