Conveyor Lighting - What you need to know

When designing your lighting for conveyors, the most important considerations are:

• Application (Open or closed conveyor)
• Mounting height
• Pole spacing
• Light loss factor (Due to lamp lumen depreciation, dust & dirt)
• Energy Consumption

When a conveyor lighting design is planned, best practice is to space light fixtures between 10 and 14 meters apart, mounted at 2.4m above the walkway. Although fit-for-purpose conveyor fixtures might allow for an even wider pole spacing, best practice is to space the poles slightly closer than the maximum so as to compensate for any potential changes that may occur during installation. A mounting height of 2.4m is generally used in South African mining installations as it allows for ease of maintenance without the need for ‘Working at Heights’ permits. Such a design ensures that the commonly accepted criteria of an average of 50 lux with a minimum of 20 lux between poles is achieved.

Regulations for escape route lighting require 0.3 lux on the center line of the escape route. To comply with this, it is generally recommended that every alternating light fitting is of the emergency variety incorporating a battery and inverter. This spacing may of course vary from manufacturer-to-manufacturer dependent on light distribution and percentage output under emergency conditions.

To ensure the safe evacuation of personnel during a power failure, it is recommended that the duration of the emergency lighting is 60 minutes minimum.

The maintenance factors utilized for fixtures in a lighting design can change depending on the material the conveyors are handling, the environment in which the conveyor is situated, as well as whether the conveyor is of the open or closed type. It is essential however to use a maintenance factor that aligns to the expected environmental conditions. For example, when performing a lighting design for a coal bearing conveyor, a maintenance factor of not less than 0.75 should be used, indicating that the design considers a 25% loss in light due to a potential build-up of dirt and dust.

As leaders in the lighting industry, Magnitech understands the specific challenges in correctly illuminating conveyors. We have successfully designed and supplied numerous lighting solutions for many of the world’s most pre-eminent mining houses over the past 53 years. We work with mining operations across the world and pride ourselves on our fit-for-purpose lighting solutions and our experience as leaders in the mining and industrial lighting sectors.

Magnitech offers a multitude of bespoke conveyor lighting solutions including the Die Cast Aluminium Magled Gen II, Magled Mini, Mag44 LED as well as the Stainless Steel Mag45 LED. All Magnitech’s lighting fixtures are specifically designed to be fit-for-purpose, easily maintainable, and available with various light distributions to suite any mining or industrial application. Our Conveyor fixtures are available in standard configuration as well as Zone21, Zone 22, Zone 2 and even integral Zone 2 Emergency.

Call us on +27 11 618 2720 or email on tech@magnitech.co.za and have one of our engineers help you with your conveyor application.