DALI Products & Control Gear

Overview

Digital Addressable Lighting Interface (DALI) is a trademark for network-based products that control lighting. The underlying technology was established by a consortium of lighting equipment manufacturers as a successor for 1-10 V/0–10 V lighting control systems, and as an open standard alternative to several proprietary protocols.

A DALI network consists of at least one application controller and bus power supply (which may be built into any of the products) as well as input devices (e.g. sensors and push-buttons), control gear (e.g., electrical ballasts, LED drivers and dimmers) with DALI interfaces. Application controllers can control, configure or query each device by means of a bi-directional data exchange. The DALI protocol permits addressing devices individually, in groups or via broadcast.

Visionary provides DALi control gear as an option for many of its luminaires for use in DALI networks. Visionary, however, does not provide DALI systems for buildings as our focus is on luminaires and their attached control gear as a company. Visionary does provide a programming service for the control gear to configure DALI products to your specifications but does not program DALI networks themselves.

Please note: Lead times typically apply for DALI orders as the technology is required to be imported from offshore. Programming and configuration of DALI products also takes longer than typical triac dimming control gear. Please contact a Visionary office for advisory of lead times and your specific requirements.

The following table below lists Visionary products that can be configured for DALI networks;

Product	DALI Class
Residential Eve Family Astra Family Kainos Family Iris Family QT Family Pandora Nano Family Linear Families	DALI 2
Commercial/Industrial Avira Panel Family Hybrid Panel Family D200/D235 Family Revolution Highbay Family Insurgent Highbay Family Revolution Flood Family Bollard Family Wallpack	DALI 2

Frequently Asked Questions

Question	Response
How do i dim DALI lights?	Dimming in a DALI network is controlled by the DALI bus and its interconnected interface. The luminaire simply responds to instructions provided by the DALI network and dims accordingly.
My DALI control gear has two ‘DA’ terminals. I don’t know how which is the correct polarity?	Polarity in a DALI network is not a consideration. You may wire the core connection points to either of the control gears ‘DA’ terminals. We recommended wiring the control gear using the same wire colouring as part of best practices for cable management.
Why are DALI drivers much more expensive than other protocols?	DALI uses a digital interface that requires a series of integrated circuits and controllers to operate, and therefore costs more to manufacture. DALI also brings more flexibility and control options than typical analog protocols such as 0-10V and triac dimming.
Can i connect a Visionary DALI product to my existing DALI network?	In most cases - yes. The DALI protocol is regulated by international standards which means that our control gear is designed to work on all DALI networks sharing the same DALI standard. Ultimately, the performance of the product is dependant on the programming and configuration of the network.
Can i connect a DALI driver to a 0-10V network?	No, the DALI driver uses a digital protocol. 0-10V is an analog protocol and will not work. You can,however, purchase converts to convert 0-10V signals to DALI and vice versa. Contact a Visionary office for more information.
What brand do you use for your DALI Control gear?	It depends on the product family. For linear, Linear Pro and Bollards - we primarily use Tridonic control gear. For battens and panels, we use BOKE. For flood lighting and highbays, we typically use Meanwell or Inventronics - model dependant. Note: The brand of the control gear using DALI does not impact the performance of network performance and multiple brands of control gear can be used in harmony as long as they comply with the applicable DALI standards. Visionary control gear is fully compliant to DALI standards - regardless of brand.