Street Light Pole Factory Setup: Complete Manufacturing Guide

1. What Is A Street Light Pole Factory Setup

So what does it take to set up a street light pole factory?

It’s basically everything that goes into running a pole manufacturing business.

There is a lot that goes into this type of project.

Not only will you be buying a few machines but you’ll want to know what products you want to offer.

You will need to figure out processes, machines, layouts, material flow, utility requirements, employees and how to ensure quality.

Most street light pole factories will take a piece of steel plate and turn it into a lighting pole.

The basic process is as follows.

Steel Plate > Cutting > Forming > Welding > Straightening > Pole Head > Finishing > Surface Coating > Inspection

Of course every factory is going to be different.

The size of the poles you want to make will dictate the size of the machines you need.

How many you want to produce will determine the amount of automation you’ll need.

So before you buy any machines know what you want to produce.

Street Light Pole Production Line

2. What Can You Make With A Street Light Pole Factory

There are many things you can produce if you have the right street light pole factory.

Here are just a few examples.

• Street light poles
• Solar street light poles
• Highway light poles
• Garden light poles
• Traffic light poles
• Camera poles
• Smart City poles
• Landscape light poles
• High mast light poles
• Industrial light poles

Of course you can make many different variations of these as well.

Just make sure your equipment can accommodate what you want to make.

3. Street Light Pole Factory Manufacturing Process

Before setting up your street light pole factory you should understand the process.

Each factory can vary but here is a typical street light pole manufacturing process.

Making The Steel Plate Ready

First you will want to receive steel plate for your street light pole.

Once you receive your steel you can begin to prepare for your next step.

Cutting The Steel Plate

Using a steel plate cutter you will cut your plate to size.

If you’re making a tapered street light pole you will need to cut your plate to a trapezoid shape.

Forming The Pole

Using hydraulic presses you will form your blank into its desired shape.

Welding Your Pole

Once formed you can begin welding your pole. We recommend using an automatic welding machine.

Straightening The Pole

After your pole has been welded you will want to use a straightening machine.

Pole Head

Depending on your street light pole design you may want to bend or shrink your pole head.

Finishing The Pole

Next you can begin adding doors, cable holes and any other attachments.

After that your pole can be ground and prepared for finishing.

Finishing

Now your pole is ready to be dipped or painted.

Inspection

Lastly you will want to inspect your poles for defects.

4. What Machines Do I Need For My Street Light Pole Factory

This will vary from customer to customer but here are some machines you may want to consider.

Machine Used For

Of course there are many more machines that can be added to your factory depending on your product.

Don’t try and pick each machine on its own. Understand the entire process before buying.

Street Light Pole Production Line

5. How To Prepare Your Steel Plate

As you can see above we mentioned preparing your steel plate.

If your making a tapered street light pole you will want to cut your plate to a trapezoid shape.

You want to make sure that you can achieve the following.

• Proper cutting dimensions
• Proper location of your plate
• Smooth edges on your cut
• Even taper
• Efficient plate usage
• Long enough plate to work with

One thing that we want to bring to your attention is how much steel you can use.

Steel can make up a large portion of your total cost.

By maximizing your plate you can lower your costs.

Plate Trapezoid Shearing Machine

6. Forming Your Street Light Poles

Now that you’ve cut your steel plate you will need to form it.

You can form your steel plate into many different shapes.

• Octagonal
• Polygons
• Round
• Cone
• Tapered

Your forming machine will need to be able to form the steel plate that you’re working with.

Also keep in mind what shape you want to form.

You want to make sure your pole is formed correctly so you don’t run into issues when welding.

7. Welding Your Street Light Poles

Now that your pole is formed you will want to weld it.

By using an automatic welding machine you can control your weld.

• Current
• Voltage
• Travel Speed
• Torch Position
• Location Of Weld
• Amount Of Weld Penetration

By automating this process you can eliminate some of the tedious tasks.

Make sure your welder can handle your product.

You can always inspect your weld and grind it down if needed.

Automatic Pole Welding Machine

8. Pole Head Bending & Shrinking

Some street light poles will call for a bent pole head.

Our Pole Head Bending Machine will allow you to do this.

You will need to know the following information.

• Angle you want to bend
• Radius you want to achieve
• Size of pole
• Location of bend
• How you want it to sit

If your street light poles call for the top to be smaller than the bottom you can use our Pole Head Shrinking Machine.

9. Straightening & Grinding Your Pole

When forming and welding your poles they will become slightly out of shape.

That is why most street light pole factories will include a straightening machine.

You can use our Pole Straightening Machine to correct the pole.

It can help with

• Overall Straightness
• Helps with Installation
• Makes your pole look nicer
• Ensures that your pole is lined up properly

Once your pole is straight you can send it through your grinder.

Be careful not to grind too much. This can take away from your wall thickness.

10. Adding Doors And Other Attachments

You will also want to add doors to your pole if needed.

If your pole calls for a flange you will need to add that as well.

You can use the following machines to add these items to your pole.

• Flange Cutting
• Drilling Machine
• Hole Machine
• Welding
• Door Cutting Machine
• Cable Hole
• Any additional reinforcing

This all depends on the pole you want to make.

Just remember if your adding a flange you will need to drill holes that line up with your foundation.

11. Galvanizing

Outdoor poles need protection against rust.

So surface treatment is another step that comes after.

Galvanizing

When you hot dip galvanize steel it will have a layer of zinc.

This is widely used for exterior steel applications.

But a galvanizing line needs to have certain requirements met.

Which is why many pole factories do not have one.

They will send the product to a local galvanizer.

Or they will build one in their facility.

Powder Coat

If the pole needs color and extra coating you can powder coat.

Paint

Some factories will use industrial paint for certain jobs.

You want to use what your customer requests or the application calls for.

12. Inspection

When setting up a street light pole factory there are multiple places you can inspect.

Don’t just wait till the end.

Inspect as much as possible while manufacturing the pole.

Raw Material

Make sure your steel meets requirements and is the correct size.

Blank

Inspect for proper size and taper.

Forming

Make sure pole is the correct profile.

Welding

Make sure you inspect the lengthwise weld.

Dimensions

• Length

• Bottom diameter

• Top diameter

• Wall thickness

• Taper

• Straightness

• Holes

• Surface

Scratches/dents/burr/coating

There may be more inspections needed for certain jobs.

13. Factory Layout

When designing your factory you want your material to travel one direction.

Something like this.

Raw material storage

↓

Cutting

↓

Forming

↓

Welding

↓

Straightening

↓

Other operations

↓

Grinding

↓

Inspection

↓

Coating

↓

Storage

By doing this you can travel less distance.

It also makes it easier to manage.

Since poles can be long you want to make sure you have plenty of room around your machines.

You can also use overhead cranes or other lifting equipment.

14. How big should my factory be?

There is no set amount of square footage.

It depends on how long your poles are.

How many machines you have.

How many poles you want to produce.

How much raw material you want to store.

How much finished product you want to store.

Will you be coating in house.

How you plan to move material.

Where your cranes will go.

Just like with machine spacing you want to make sure you have extra room for long poles.

So keep that in mind when calculating your workshop size.

Remember you will also need space to load and unload product.

And make sure employees can safely get to the machines and move material.

Always have your machine supplier look over your workshop size before building out your line.

15. Production Capacity

Your production capacity should drive what machines you buy.

Know how many poles you want to make per shift.

• How many shifts you will run.

• Size of pole.

• Average wall thickness.

• Amount of styles.

• Change overs.

Once you know this figure out what processes are going to be slower.

You may have your cutting go faster than your forming.

Or your welding may be your slowest process.

You want to have similar capacity across all machines.

Just because you bought the fastest machine doesn’t mean your factory will run faster.

16. How Automatic Should My Factory Be?

There are many ways to automate a street light pole factory.

Factory With No Automation

You can run a factory with each machine and move material manually.

This can work for lower production.

Semi Automatic Factory

You can have automatic machines and load/unload them by hand.

Automatic Factory

If you want to run high production you can.

• Feed automatically

• Move parts with cnc

• Automatically form poles

• Weld automatically

• Move material

• Monitor production

• Store data on each pole

Its up to you what you want to automate.

If your not running that fast why spend money on automation.

17. What Else Do You Need?

There are other things to consider when building your street light pole factory.

Make sure you have enough electricity, air, hydraulic, welding power, etc.

Depending on your setup you may need:

• Air

• Crane

• Lifting equipment

• Tool storage

• Maintenance area

Always make sure you have enough electric to run all of your machines.

Same goes for your crane make sure it can lift your largest raw material or pole.

Make sure you have safety measures in place for your machines and processes.

18. Steps to Build a Street Light Pole Factory

Here are a few steps to follow when setting up your street light pole factory.

1. Know what poles you want to make.

• Height

• Diameter

• Wall thickness

• Shape

• Material

• Head

2. How many poles do you want to make per day/month.

3. What process do you need to make the pole.

4. Pick your machines.

Based on pole size and production.

5. Set up your workshop.

Material flow, machine location, storage.

6. Get utilities in place.

7. Install your machines.

8. Run poles.

9. Fine tune.

10. Start producing.

19. Common Mistakes When Setting Up Your Street Light Pole Factory

Buy machines before knowing what you want to make.

You need to know your pole drawings to figure out what machines you need.

Don’t think about material flow.

Don’t know how long your poles are going to be.

Find your bottleneck.

Only looking at machine price.

Price is only a part of what you are paying for.

Think about what else you might make in the future.

20. Nanjing Bangwin Machine

Nanjing Bangwin Machine can help you build your street light pole factory.

We can help you design your process and provide the right equipment for your finished pole.

We can provide the following:

• Shear equipment for trapezoid

• Pole forming machine

• Auto welding

• Pole head machine

• Pipe head machine

• Straightener

• Grinder

• Material handling

We can also help design your process and what you will need to automate.

Nanjing Bangwin Machine industrial machines

Home

21. Faqs

l What machines do I need to build a street light pole factory?

You will need machines to cut the plate, form the pole, weld, straighten and finish the pole.

Depending on the pole you may need other machines.

l How much does a street light pole factory cost?

There is many things to take into consideration when pricing a factory.

Size of pole, production, how automatic you want it, if your going to coat in house.

You will need to tell the supplier what type of pole you want to make.

l What do I need to tell a machine supplier?

Max length of pole, top and bottom diameter, wall thickness, material, shape of pole and drawings.

l Can I make street lights and solar lights?

Yes you can as long as your machines can handle the sizes.

There may be other operations that you need to do for solar.

l Can I make octagon poles and round poles?

Yes but it depends on how your forming the pole.

Make sure you ask your machine supplier what shapes your able to make.

l Do I need a galvanizing line?

No you can always out source your galvanizing.

It just depends on your production and where your located.

l What should I think about when designing my factory?

Material flow.

Make sure you have enough room to load, feed and unload your raw material and poles.

l Should I get a fully automatic line?

It depends on how much you want to produce.

You can get away with semi automatic equipment and still have good production.

l Can I make high mast poles?

If your machines are capable of making high masts then yes.

l How do I get a quote for my factory?

Send us a few pole drawings and we can figure out what you need.

Let us know wall thickness, max length, top and bottom diameter and how many you want to make per day.

22. Final Thoughts

When you want to set up a street light pole factory think about what you want to make first.

Once you know what you want to make you can figure out the process.

From there you can start picking your machines.

And make sure your workshop has room for your material flow.

You can build any type of steel pole with the right process.

Nanjing Bangwin Machine can help you with any of your street light pole factory needs.