CAD software for designing street lighting networks

What is Meteor Calc SL?

MeteorCalc SL is a powerful cross-platform CAD plugin for designing electrical part of outdoor lighting networks such as street lighting and tunnel lighting installations. You can fully automate all electrotechnical calculations, computations of specifications and drawing of electrical schemes.

Main features:

• Automated computation of specifications and explications of equipment;
• Automated drawing of detailed single-line schemes of street lighting feeders;
• Calculation of short-circuit currents according to IEC60909 (last edition 2016);
• Calculation of voltage losses in street lighting feeders with an unbalanced load;
• Calculation of power sum and load currents in street lighting feeders and distribution panel boards;
• Adjustable cable database according to regional standards.

MeteorCalc SL supports the 400/230V (TN) 50Hz voltage systems in street lighting networks and the Metric system of units in dwg-files. The nominal voltage is adjustable within 220/380V - 250/440V according to regional standards.

This software is not intended for performing lighting calculations.

Street lighting network model

The street lighting model should be created in a drawing with scale 1 unit = 1 meter. The MeteorCalc SL enables to create street lighting models of any level of complexity. Restrictions quantity of branches and their level of an enclosure are not present.

The street lighting model can be located in a separate dwg-file or can be situated directly in the street lighting project file as the part of your project.

Schemes of street lighting feeders

Drawing of accurate and detailed schemes of street lighting feeders is very simple with the MeteorCalc SL.

For drawing a scheme MeteorCalc SL carries out SC-current calculations and voltage loss calculations in the selected end point.

Electrotechnical calculations

The MeteorCalc SL allows to perform all required electrical calculations for designing street lighting installations. The minimum and maximum short-circuit currents are calculated according to IEC60909 (last edition 2016) for all end points in the street lighting feeders.

According to the IEC 60909 for balanced and unbalanced short circuits it is useful to calculate short-circuit currents by application of symmetrical components. The symmetrical components method allows to calculate all types of short-circuit currents at any point in a street lighting feeder with a high degree of accuracy.

The program has a calculation process, which is open to monitoring. On user request every step of all the electrical calculations can be thoroughly checked.

Specifications and explications

MeteorCalc SL allows to obtain the following bills of materials and explications of SL-objects:

• Street lighting poles;
• Pole supports and foundations;
• Luminaires;
• Cables;
• Cable tracks;
• Internal wiring and equipment in poles;
• Earthing devices.

Results of the specification are output into the drawing in a form of a table.

Incredible work speed

Users who previously worked practically in manual mode, say that they began to make their projects 10 or more times faster. Those, who used third-party programs and lost a lot of time on transfer data from the CAD platform to calculation software and back, believe that they began to work 3-5 times faster and feel much more comfortable at the same time. Check out our customers feedback.

Design stage	Standard workflow	MeteorCalc SL
Building street lighting network model (80 luminaires + 80 cable sections + 2 distribution panel boards).	0 minutes	15 minutes using Import Blocks, Import Cable Lines and Draw Model Line commands.
Descripting of street lighting units in the MeteorCalc’s Data Library There are 3 different types of park poles with luminaires in the example file	15 minutes to collect data of park poles, foundations and luminaires. You will need this data for making bill of materials in future.	15 minutes for three different types of street lighting units.
Assigning data to all objects of the project (80 luminaires + 80 cable sections). Data of all objects must be shown on the plan.	3-5 hours depending on the notation system you use in your projects.	5-10 minutes for Copy Data, Multiply Data and Insert Cable Marker commands. All lengths of cables will be calculated automatically.
Numerating street lighting units in the feeders (6 feeders, 80 luminaires).	1 hour using manual numeration or 30 minutes using third party plugins.	30 seconds (3-4 clicks) per feeder.
Distributing by phases in the feeder (6 feeders, 80 luminaires).	1 hour manually.	30 seconds (3-4 clicks) per feeder.
Calculating power sum and load currents for each phase separately (6 feeders). Calculating power sum and load currents in the distribution panel boards (2 DPB).	1-2 hours manually. The feeder usually contains several luminaires with different powers.	30 seconds (3-4 clicks) per feeder. 1 minute (5 clicks) per DPB.
Performing calculations of short-circuit currents at the end points of the feeders according to IEC60909 (14 points of calculation by the method of symmetrical components).	1-2 hours. This step cannot be done by manual calculation. If you use third party software, you have to prepare and transfer all initial data for calculations manually.	30 seconds (4 clicks) per calculation point.
Performing voltage loss calculations in unsymmetrical 3-phase lines with several 1-phase loads (14 points of calculation).	2-3 hours. This step cannot be done by manual calculation. If you use third party software, you have to prepare and transfer all initial data for calculations manually.	30 seconds (4 clicks) per calculation point.
Drawing of schemes (6 feeders with branch lines). Results of electrotechnical calculations must be shown on the scheme.	6-8 hours for manual drawing.	1 minute (5 clicks) for main line. 1 minute (5 clicks) per branch line. MeteorCalc SL also performs electrotechnical calculations while drawing schemes.
Descripting all the data of street lighting units used in the project (3 different types of park poles with luminaires).	1-2 hours manually.	20 seconds (3 clicks) using Used Units command.
Computations of equipment specifications (poles, foundations, luminaires, cables).	4-5 hours for manual computations. This step is a huge source of errors when done manually.	30 seconds (4 clicks) per one table of equipment specification.
Export street lighting units and cables data from a CAD platform to a spreadsheet software (80 luminaires + 80 cable sections).	1-2 hours manually.	30 seconds (4 clicks) per one CSV file.
Total work:	16-24 hours	Less than 2 hours

Supported CAD platforms

• AutoCAD except AutoCAD LT. Most vertical products: Architecture, Civil 3D, MAP, Mechanical, Electrical, Plant 3D;
• BricsCAD (Classic, Pro, Platinum). Vertical products: BricsCAD Sheet Metal, BricsCAD BIM;
• GstarCAD (Professional, Academic, Standard) except GstarCAD Light. Vertical products: Architecture, Mechanical.