The Digitally Adressable Lighting Interface (DALI) is a digital protocol for the controlling of lighting in buildings (e.g. Ballast (electrical), Dimmer, etc.).
DALI was established as a successor for the still market dominating 1-10v and Open standard rival to DSI. DALI is standardized in accordance with International Electrotechnical Commission 60929, standard for fluorescent lamp ballasts.
Each operating equipment with a DALI interface can be communicated with over DALI individually. Using a bi-directional data exchange, a DALI controller can query and set the status of each light. As a “stand alone system”, DALI can be operated with a maximum of 64 devices. Alternatively, DALI can be used as a subsystem via DALI gateways.
Advantages
DALI is an open standard not exclusively owned by a single company. It only requires one wire for up to 64 devices.
Disadvantages
Each device gives itself a random number to identify itself, which makes inital installation and replacing faulty devices confusing as there is no indication which device is which, until you send out test signals and look to see which device responds. Being restricted to sixty-four addresses DALI cannot be used in large installations without using another technology to circumvent the limitation.
External links
Organisations
- AG-DALI, a working group set up by leading manufacturers and institutions in the field of digital lamp/luminaire control to promote DALI technology and applications