DALI (Digital Addressable Lighting Interface) is a dedicated protocol for lighting control. See https://www.dali-alliance.org/.

DALI is tailor made for modern lighting solutions. A DALI system can be as small as a single luminaire, or can encompass multiple systems across one or more buildings. DALI systems can be connected using lighting hubs/routers.

DALI features:

  • Max. 64 devices per subnet (hub/routers)
  • Max. 300m cabling
  • Max. 250mA device consumption
  • Standard two-core cable (1,5mm²)
  • Polarity free & free wiring topology
  • DALI power and data on the same pair of wires
  • Bidirectional communication with feedback of operating state (dim level, lamp failure, etc.)

Structure

A DALI system can be made up of control gear, control devices and bus power supplies.

Control gear

Control gear usually contains the power control circuit to drive lamps, or some other type of output, such as on/off switching or 1 to 10 V analog signals.

Control devices

Control devices can provide information to other control devices, such as light intensity information, and can send commands to control gear. Input devices are a type or a part of a control device that provides some information to the system, such as a button press or movement detection. DALI application controllers are also control devices, e.g., they can send commands to control gear to modify the lighting.

Bus power supplies

At least one bus power supply must be present in a DALI system. This is necessary to allow both communications on the bus, and to power any bus-powered devices. The bus power supply does not need to be a separate unit – it could be part of another device such as a LED driver or a sensor.

Bus wires

A DALI system also includes the bus wires that are used to connect the DALI terminals of the various devices in the system.

Addressing

DALI allows the flexible addressing of devices.

At the simplest level, all devices are addressed simultaneously by broadcast commands. This allows the control of lighting in a similar manner to 1 to 10 V analog control, without requiring any configuration of the individual devices. If a level (Direct Arc Power Command) is broadcast, then all control gear will act upon that command, changing their output to the same new level.

With simple configuration, DALI devices can be given one of 64 short-addresses. This allows individual control, configuration and querying of any single device in the system.

DALI devices can also be group addressed, e.g., a DALI LED driver could be programmed to be in any combination of the 16 available groups. When a command is sent to a group, only devices that are in that group are addressed.

System devices

PXC3...A

The PXC3…A automation stations have a DALI bus for connecting up to 64 DALI ballasts/drivers.

PXC3.E16A

The PXC3.E16A room automation station is optimized for lighting applications. It has an onboard DALI interface for connecting up to 64 electronic ballasts or LED drivers