What is DALI? Everything You Need to Know About DALI Dimming

What is DALI?

DALI stands for “Digital Addressable Lighting Interface.” It is a digital communication protocol to manage lighting control networks in building automation projects. DALI is a trademarked standard that is used all over the world. It makes connecting LED equipment from many manufacturers easy. This equipment can include dimmable ballasts, receiver and relay modules, power supplies, dimmers/controllers, and more.

DALI was made to improve the 0-10V lighting control system by adding to what Tridonic’s DSI protocol could do. DALI systems let the control system talk to each LED driver and LED ballast/device group in both directions. Meanwhile, 0-10V controls only let you talk to them in one direction.

The DALI protocol gives LED control devices all the commands. DALI protocol also gives communication channels they need to control building lighting. It is also scalable and can be used for simple and complicated installations.

Why choose DALI?

DALI can help designers, building owners, electricians, facility managers, and building users control digital lighting more effectively and flexibly. As a bonus, you can be sure it will work perfectly with lighting equipment from many companies.

In the most straightforward setups, like single rooms or small buildings, a DALI system can be a single switch that controls many LED lights powered by a DALI-compatible power supply. So, there is no longer a need for separate control circuits for each fixture, and setting up takes the least amount of work possible.

LED ballasts, power supply, and device groups may all be addressed using DALI. That makes it ideal for large buildings, office complexes, retail spaces, campuses, and similar settings where space and use needs are subject to change.

Some other benefits of controlling LEDs with DALI are as follows:

1. Facility managers would benefit from being able to check on the status of each fixture and ballast. It takes a lot less time to fix things and replace them.

2. Because DALI is an open standard, it is easy to combine products from different manufacturers. It also helps to upgrade to better technology as it becomes available.

3. Centralized control and timer systems make it possible to make lighting profiles. Best for ease of use, peak demand, venues with more than one scene, and saving energy.

4. DALI is easy to set up because it only needs two wires to connect. Installers don’t have to be skilled because you don’t have to know how the lights will be set up in the end or label and keep track of the wiring for each fixture. The input and output are both done with two cables.

How to control DALI?

Standard light bulbs and fixtures are used in DALI installations. But the ballasts, receiver modules, and drivers differ. These parts connect DALI’s two-way digital communications, which can be set up in many different ways, to a central control system, which can be anything from a laptop to a high-tech lighting control desk.

Centralizing fixed light switches makes it possible to control a single light or the whole lighting circuit (aka a lighting zone). When the switch is flipped, all the lights in the same “group” are told to turn on or off simultaneously (or the brightness is adjusted).

A basic DALI system can take care of up to 64 LED ballasts and power supplies (also known as a loop). All the other devices connect to the DALI controller. Most of the time, several separate loops will be linked together and run as one extensive system to control the light over a larger area.

Key features of DALI

1. It is a free protocol, so any manufacturer can use it.

2. For DALI-2, certification requirements ensure that devices made by different companies will work together.

3. Setting it up is easy. You can lay power and control lines next to each other because they don’t need to be shielded.

4. The wiring can be set up in the shape of a star (hub and spokes), a tree, a line, or a mix of these.

5. Because you can use digital signals for communication instead of analog ones, many devices can get the same dimming values, which makes dimming very stable and accurate.

6. The system’s addressing scheme ensures that each device can be controlled separately.

Compatibility of DALI products with each other

The first version of DALI didn’t work well with other systems. It didn’t work because the specification was too narrow. Each DALI data frame only had 16 bits: 8 bits for the address and 8 bits for the command. This meant that you could send many commands that were very limited. Also, there was no way to stop commands from being sent at the same time. Because of this, many different companies tried to make it better by adding features that didn’t work well with each other.

With the help of DALI-2, this problem got fixed.

• DALI-2 is much more complete and has many more features than its predecessor. This means that specific manufacturers can no longer make changes to DALI.

• The Digital Illumination Interface Alliance (DiiA) owns the DALI-2 logo and has established strict rules about how it can be used. One of the most important is that for a device to have the DALI-2 logo. It must first be certified as meeting all the IEC62386 standards.

Even though DALI-2 lets you use DALI and DALI components together, you can’t do everything you want to do with DALI-2. This lets DALI LED drivers, the most common type, work in a DALI-2 system.