DALI - Cutting through the FUD #1

Over a few articles, I will attempt to address the FUD that has been distributed and promoted in the market.

Over the last few weeks, I have been presented with several pieces written with one goal. Discredit, promote uncertainty, and sow doubt about DALI and its abilities. These emails and conversations are written to skirt around the edges and never be specific but are written to promote the original content writer's agenda (that being to sell their product).

I never expected to see this sort of information being spread and ethically I would not allow my team to do the same, but hey, if it worked for Microsoft in the ’80s and 90’s it can work for these people now.

The best way to address these points is to increase public awareness and address how people are being misled.

The First topic to discuss is this banger

"DALI requires two people to commission"

I see this often, normally the motive is to promote the underlying understanding that commissioning a DALI system is hard, costly, and time-consuming. A narrative common among anti-sell professionals.

Let's investigate the truth behind this misinformation.

In today's world, this claim is completely incorrect. The reason people can get away with saying this (while not pointing out any specifics and not being liable) is that at the beginning of time in DALI’s infancy (around 2001) key players in the market hadn’t developed their software solutions and needed a solution to deploy DALI systems.??The solution was to use two-way radio. One person would sit in the comms room and the other would walk the floors and locate devices. It's a quick and easy solution and it worked well in the absence of anything better.

Since then, many things have changed. We now have mobile smart devices and the software has progressed so far that some installations have been delivered with zero (0, nada, zilch) commissioning. In reality, zencontrol has deployed many buildings that have received practical completion without anyone even touching any software or commissioning products (The zencontrol room controller is a brilliant solution for this).

DALI is an open protocol and being such, different vendors can supply different and varied software solutions to commission a site, and with these solutions, there is a common thread that "commissioning only requires one person".

When using a zencontrol system DALI is made simple. Even emergency lighting is fast and easy (why wouldn’t it, emergency lighting is many times easier than lighting control).

Here are some of the ways that zencontrol makes commissioning easy.

Addressing

You might hear this term thrown around, but it’s associated with old-process thinking (or associated with confusion and cost). Within a zencontrol system, customers or integrators don’t need to know what or how DALI addressing works. Modern systems perform this "addressing" component automatically and without the need for human intervention. When given enough time, the process of addressing is completed well before the commissioning begins. If you hear the term "addressing" by someone discussing DALI systems then it could be likely you are being sold ANTI-DALI sediment as good modern systems don't expose this to the customer.

Locating (or commissioning)

The most important part of commissioning a system is the task of locating the physical devices, this could be a light fitting, an emergency device, or a switch or sensor.

In the locating process, an installer wants to make a link in the system to where the device is physically located. Due to choice, many providers will do this differently.

zencontrol emergency lighting systems using DALI-2 or Ektor branded emergency products have an extremely simple and easy process. Once the commissioning process has started, the installer walks to the product they want to locate, they press the test switch located on the product, and in less than 2 seconds the product has been located with all the relevant information about the products shown on their smartphone.

Depending on the quality of the installation and the installer, the amount of logical information stored is decided by the installer. Typically, installers will assign an ID (unique building-wide number), the floor (typically automatically populated), and location data in some form of human-readable format (such as “Office 3.2 above the door”). Alternatively, if they use zencontrol plan-view and have already placed the device on a plan they would enter the ID from plan-view.

Addressing emergency lighting, switches and sensors follow this same process. Extremely simple. Other DALI ECGs require an extra step to physically locate the device, but this is also not complicated.

Thinking about the bigger picture, irrespective of brand, make, or technology, the commissioning process of addressable lighting systems is trying to achieve the same task. That task is to link a physical device to an identifier known within the system making it easier to understand the location and type of device. This process is the same for emergency lighting systems and the information entered allows for trouble-free maintenance.

If you are being told this misinformation, consider why you are the target, what do they have to lose? and what other representations are they making about DALI or the system they are trying to convince you to purchase? or is it too late, have you already become a victim?

What do other DALI providers and installers think about this FUD?

#DALI #smartbuilding #FUD #IOT Philips Dynalite Clipsal #knx Clevertronics ANZ 阿西布朗勃法瑞公司（ABB） Stowe Australia Nilsen Group Fredon #emergencylighting SDF Electrical Pty Ltd Perigon - Electrical Engineers & Contractors zencontrol