The 26th Guangzhou International Lighting Exhibition (GILE), with the theme of “What can be done now, what can be expected in the future”, talked about the breakthrough of the current lighting industry and looked forward to the trend of the future industry. When lighting strides into the IoT data era, DALI Alliance has also comprehensively upgraded by improving standards and specifications and optimizing link methods to meet the data requirements of the IoT era.
On August 4, the “DALI: Intelligent lighting control protocol in the IoT era – Technical explanation forum” co-organized by DALI Alliance’s China Focus Group (DALI CFG), was held successfully. At the forum, experts from international and domestic (China) well-known leading intelligent lighting enterprises, consulting institutions and testing institutions shared the latest progress of DALI technology, DALI testing and certification, and explained DALI technical details (DALI-2, D4i, etc.) in detail, so as to provide golden opportunities for people in the industry to add valuable knowledge.
The forum was presided over by Dr. Huang Feng, Chairman of DALI CFG and Chief Expert of Signify Standards and Regulations Department. He thanked the audience and guests, and introduced the top DALI-CFG experts, before presenting the first technical sharing of this forum.
Latest progress of the DALI Alliance
At the meeting, Dr. Huang Feng focused on the latest progress of DALI Alliance in technical changes and membership in China from the evolution of DALI certification standards.
He said that the earliest DALI only did power supply and could only be controlled by simple dimming. The standard has been gradually standardized since DALI-2, developed from self-declaration to requiring official certification of the alliance, increased the certification of sensors, controllers and other equipment, solved the problem of interconnection of DALI products of various manufacturers, and has the ability to adjust more details of lighting. Now it has D4i and DALI + technologies, which support IoT technology and wireless transmission respectively, so as to cooperate with the rapid development trend of digital network and sensing technology in recent years and provide DALI users with more diverse and flexible choices.
Finally, he said that at present, DALI Alliance has more than 60 members in China. In order to provide better services for members in China and promote the application of DALI technology in China, DALI Alliance established DALI CFG on May 18 this year. In the future, DALI CFG will carry out a series of activities offline, such as publishing white papers and Q&A documents, participating in offline exhibitions and forums, and carrying out DALI related training. They look forward to the active participation of member units in China.
Listen to thunder in silence
Starting from DALI’s advantages, Li Jinbiao, R&D Director of Guangdong BOKE Power Supply Co., Ltd., brought the theme sharing of “DALI’s way to win – listening to thunder in silence” to the audience. Jinbiao organized DALI’s winning way into ten elements: special lighting positioning; Rich equipment models; Have detailed and perfect standards; Issued by IEC with authority; Unified authentication platform; Open DALI Alliance; Good product ecology; Excellent technical and promotion team; Keep pace with the times; Cooperation and integration.
He said that the development of DALI Alliance is so good because of the high-quality ecosystem, which drives the lighting power supply, drive and intelligent lighting related industries. It is not only applied to commercial lighting, but also promotes plant lighting, intelligent buildings, home, intelligent cities and other aspects. In addition, DALI is constantly strengthening itself, constantly adding new protocols, new equipment and new transmission media, and constantly cooperating with other organizations. In this era of IoT, only in this way can we remain invincible.
Analysis of common problems in DALI detection
Wang Hui, Project Manager of Lighting Engineering Department of CVC Testing Technology Co., Ltd., brought the theme report of analysis of common problems in DALI testing. Based on their own work experience, 15 manual items that are most prone to problems are selected for detailed explanation.
She said, “As one of the most important program clauses in DALI-2 detection process, the ‘detection preamble’ clause makes a system specification for two types of detection of DALI bus power supply: data interface and power supply mark. At the same time, she further explained the program terms involved in nine DALI tests such as ‘overvoltage protection’, ‘current level’, ‘transmitter voltage’ and ‘logarithmic dimming curve’ and the common problems generated in the test process. It has brought professional solutions to DALI product R&D and application enterprises participating in the forum.
Introduction and application of DALI-2 protocol
Zeng Shijun, Product Manager of Zencontrol, told the sharing agency on the topic of DALI-2 protocol introduction and application that DALI-2 is different from DALI-1 in three aspects except bug repair: First, in terms of LED driver, the standard is clearer and standardized, so as to significantly improve product interoperability and reduce problems in installation; Second, new control equipment standards such as application controller or sensor are added, so that different brands can cooperate with each other well; Third, in terms of compulsory certification, DALI-2 products must pass the full certification of DALI Alliance, and can be queried on the product database of DALI website to make the products more safe and reliable.
Finally, ZengShijun explained in detail the application of DALI-2 protocol from the six directions of dimming, improving energy efficiency, emergency self-inspection, human factor lighting, cloud control and scalability, so as to deepen the audience to understanding of DALI-2.
Tunable white – the light of work and life
Zhang Ziliang, Asia Pacific Product Manager of OSRAM Digital Lighting System, started topic from DALI-2 Part 209, a standard specifically for human factor lighting or colour change. After the epidemic, there are more and more home office situations. People will find that the efficiency of working at home is very different from that in other workplaces, which has a great relationship with the lighting needs of different scenes.
Ziliang introduced that DALI is the most complete solution that can realize human lighting in the market, and can provide appropriate lighting for the right space and the right people. Finally, Zhang Ziliang introduced OSRAM’s human factors lighting solution, which has great advantages in product performance, high efficiency and energy saving, simplified control, debugging mode and simple use mode, and can solve various lighting needs of different spaces and scenes.
Detailed explanation and application of D4i technology
Hu Guoqin, Product Manager of LED Drive and Control of Shanghai Moons Automatic Control Equipment Co., Ltd., introduced the application, certification, characteristics and functions of D4i to the audience. D4i officially started its certification in November 2019, mainly including LED driver, independent aux power supply, control equipment and lamps. Its advantage is to simplify the link mode of power supply, sensor and controller, make intelligent lamps have better IoT access capability, and provide greater convenience for the use of the Internet of Things.
Finally, Hu Guoqin introduced Moons’ D4i related products, such as outdoor D4i LED driving power supply with 240W and 320W output power, zhaga book18 wireless single lamp controller, indoor D4i LED driving power supply, etc. It shows that Moons’ D4i products not only have great characteristics, but also seek the ultimate smooth effect
in dimming.
DALI-30x standard and intelligent lighting, sensing and health
Chen Zhifeng, Technical Manager of Helvar, said that in order to finally achieve modern and more intelligent buildings that can obtain well certification, we should pay attention to the space occupation statistics of energy management. Lighting system is one of the most suitable systems to provide spatial data. So, how is the sensing data used in the whole process? He introduced the process: first, trigger, second, refine these data and exchange information. However, with the addition of more intelligent building elements, a new problem will arise, that is, different manufacturers cannot mix together for big data integration. Therefore, a new solution is needed.
Finally, he said, since we want to manage it, we must give it a new address. Therefore, the address of DALI needs to be expanded from 64 to 128 to meet the new management requirements, so as to extend the latest standards.
