DALI · Wiring guides
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Wiring guides
Enlighten Pro on DALI.
Three kinds of light, three ways the DALI wires land. Pick the one in your hand and this page takes you through the driver, the wiring, and what the automation contractor commissions.
Which light is it?
DALI itself is the same everywhere: one two-wire pair, one address per driver, sixty-four to a line. What changes is where the driver sits and what it feeds. Start with the light.
A luminaire with its own driver
COB spotlights, downlights, cylinders, track heads. Mains in, DALI in, one LED module out. The driver is the DALI device.
This one → Constant voltageLED strip on 12V or 24V
Metres of strip fed from one driver. The driver is the DALI device; the strip is the load. Length and wattage decide everything.
This one → Constant voltage · 48V trackCIANA magnetic track
The track carries 48V and DALI on four conductors; every head has its own driver inside. Its own guide, linked from here.
This one →Constant current
A luminaire with its own driver
The simplest case. A mains-fed DALI driver sits with the luminaire — in its body, its can, or a box beside it — and drives one LED module at a fixed current. The DALI pair reaches the driver; nothing else changes.
Which luminaires
Any COB spotlight, downlight or surface cylinder in the range ordered with the DALI-2 option — the product page lists DALI-2 under Driver or Control where it applies. DT6 dims. DT8 dims and tunes colour temperature, on the tunable-white models.
Which driver
The DALI-2 DT6 or DT8 constant-current driver in the band that matches the module — 5–12W, 15–20W, 22–32W, or 33–48W for DT6 and 33–40W for DT8. Mains in at 200-250Vac, 50/60Hz. Output current is selected by a two-way DIP switch, four steps per band, to match the LED module; confirm on the order which step a given head is built to.
What lands where
The terminals are named on the driver. Mains to L and N on the primary side; the two DALI wires to the pair marked DA, either way round; LED+ and LED− on the secondary side to the module, and on a DT8 a common positive with a warm and a cool return. Conductors 0.75-1.5mm², stripped 5-7mm.
One address each
Each driver is one DALI device with one short address, DT6 or DT8 alike. A DT8 carries colour temperature and level on that one address. Sixty-four drivers to a line; sensors and panels count separately under DALI-2.
The 12W driver is 116 × 30 × 21mm and draws under 0.07A; the 20W is 130 × 37 × 22.6mm and draws under 0.1A. Both hold power factor above 0.96 at 230V, switch above 3600Hz, and remember their level through a power cut. The driver as a product: DALI-2 Constant Current Driver. The DALI line rules, commissioning and the fault checks are the same for every branch and are set out below.
Constant voltage
LED strip on a DALI driver
Strip has no driver of its own. One constant-voltage DALI driver feeds a length of it, and the driver is the DALI device — one address for the whole length, however many metres. The arithmetic is wattage against metres.
Which driver
The 24V constant-voltage DALI-2 DT6 driver, 150W, IP67, 293 × 48 × 27mm. It dims by switching its output, so the strip sees 24V pulsed — every strip in the 24V range accepts that.
How many metres
Add up the strip's watts per metre over the length, and load the driver to about 80% of its rating. On 150W that is about 120W of strip — 24m at 5W/m, 12m at 10W/m. Feed a longer run from both ends or from more than one driver, exactly as on a strip run without DALI.
What lands where
Mains to the driver's input, cores as its own label names them. The two DALI wires to its DALI terminals, either way round. 24V+ and 24V− to the strip, polarity observed — strip does not light backwards. Cable sizes and terminal markings as on the driver label. specification to follow
What is not in the range
A 12V strip can go on DALI: the constant-voltage driver is made in 12V and 24V, and a 60W IP65 version exists alongside the 150W listed one. Only the 150W is on the price list, so ask before a 12V or 60W job is specified. What does not exist is a tunable (DT8) constant-voltage driver, so the 24V two-in-one tunable strip cannot yet be put on DALI.
The strip itself is on its own page: LightStream SMD2835. The driver as a product: EN-DRV-DT6-CV.
Constant voltage · 48V track
CIANA magnetic track
The one that integrators most often have not met. The channel carries 48V on one pair of conductors and DALI on the other; every head carries its own DALI driver behind its magnetic mount, and takes both pairs off the track. Two ways to get all four onto the track, and a set of rules that follow from a run being many heads on one line.
Its own guide
The four conductors, both supply methods with schematics, the input module, the line rules, commissioning and the fault checks: CIANA 48V on DALI.
Fixing the track
Channel, joints, supply and heads, from a bare ceiling: the CIANA 48V installation guide.
The line is the same in every branch
Whatever the driver feeds, the DALI line it hangs on has one set of rules. They are written out once, on the 48V guide, and they apply here unchanged.
The line
16V nominal, 250mA from one bus supply, no polarity, no end-of-line resistor, bus or star or tree but never a ring, two-core mains-rated cable sized to a 2V drop and never past 300m. Read the line rules.
Commissioning
Address, identify on foot, group, scene — done from the controller, by the automation contractor, and a replaced driver inherits nothing. Read the commissioning steps.
The controller
It must assign addresses. A broadcast-only DALI output — on some KNX gateways and some Lutron or Crestron interfaces — cannot, and none of the above happens. A DALI version-1 controller drives DT6 and DT8 gear perfectly well.
Faults
Lights but will not dim, one address missing, nothing responds, nothing lights — each has one place to look first. Read the checks.
Who does what
Enlighten Pro supplies the luminaire with the right DALI driver in it, or the driver beside it. The DALI controller, its bus supply, the DALI cable and the commissioning come from the automation contractor. DALI-2 samples are tested and approved by that contractor before an order is placed.
Alliance
Safri Solutions Pvt. Ltd. is a Community member of the DALI Alliance. The DALI drivers Enlighten Pro fits are DALI-2 certified products from an Alliance member.
Putting a scheme on DALI?
Send the luminaire schedule and the controller you are working with, and we will come back with the driver for each line, listed the way the electrician needs it.