DALI — Building Lighting Automation
DALI (Digital Addressable Lighting Interface, IEC 62386) is a lighting control protocol that standardizes on/off switching, dimming, and color temperature (DT8) for building lighting. A single DALI bus connects luminaires, sensors, and controllers across 64 short addresses (or 16 groups and 16 scenes).
The DALI driver in this gateway is a stub. PCs, industrial PCs, and Linux servers have no physical interface capable of driving a DALI bus directly, so DALI master / gateway hardware is mandatory.
Recommended integration path: register the OPC UA / Modbus TCP / REST interface exposed by the DALI master using one of PlantPulse's other drivers.
Why direct communication is not possible
DALI requires electrically generating a 24V / GND 2-wire differential signal, which is impossible with the USB / Ethernet ports of an ordinary computer. In many cases, a custom implementation that has not passed DALI-2 certification also cannot legally be used in a building lighting system.
| Hardware category | Representative products | Upper-level interface |
|---|---|---|
| USB DALI master | Lunatone DALI USB, Tridonic DALI USB | USB (vendor SDK) |
| Industrial DALI gateway | Tridonic DALI-2 SCI, Helvar 422 / 510, Lunatone DALI-2 IoT | Ethernet (Modbus TCP / BACnet/IP / OPC UA / REST) |
| Built into building automation controller | Siemens DXR, Schneider SE8000 | BACnet/IP |
| Wireless mesh | Casambi, Silvair, Zigbee→DALI | Cloud / MQTT / REST |
Recommended integration path
Most commercial DALI gateways provide an interface converted to a standard industrial protocol. Simply choose one of PlantPulse's existing drivers and register it.
| Upper-level interface provided by the DALI gateway | PlantPulse driver to use | Page |
|---|---|---|
| OPC UA Server (cleanest) | OPCUA | OPC-UA |
| Modbus TCP | MODBUS | Modbus TCP |
| BACnet/IP | (use the BACnet driver, or the gateway's Modbus/OPCUA option) | BACnet/IP |
| REST / JSON API | HTTP | HTTP push |
| MQTT (Casambi and other wireless) | Via a Sparkplug B input broker | — |
Recommendations by common DALI gateway
| Product | Recommended interface | PlantPulse driver |
|---|---|---|
| Tridonic DALI-2 SCI | OPC UA | OPCUA |
| Lunatone DALI-2 IoT | REST + MQTT | HTTP |
| Helvar Router 422 | Helvar Net (TCP) — or Modbus option | MODBUS |
| Siemens DXR2 | BACnet/IP | BACnet |
stub registration (for reference)
You can still register an OPC entry against the DALI driver, but no data will be collected. Use it only for validating the system configuration diagram.
| Input field | What to enter | Example |
|---|---|---|
| IP address | (unused, dummy) | 192.168.0.0 |
| Port | (unused, dummy) | 0 |
| Automatic collection | Disabling is recommended | OFF |
Common problems
| Symptom | Possible cause | Resolution |
|---|---|---|
| No values after DALI registration | The driver is a stub, so read results are empty strings | Use OPCUA / MODBUS / HTTP as described in Recommended integration path above |
| Luminaire status bits registered via Modbus read as 0 | Gateway register map mismatch | Recheck the register map table in the Tridonic / Lunatone manual |
| OPC UA node IDs are excessively long | The DALI master exposes its namespace deeply, per group/scene | Use a NodeId alias when registering tags, or use the master's export function |
| Dimming curve looks wrong | Difference between DALI's 0–254 (logarithmic) scale and PWM 0–100% | Convert using formula application |
Next steps
- Obtain the manual with the DALI gateway's OPC UA nodes / Modbus register map
- See the OPC-UA registration page / Modbus registration page
- Technical background: DALI driver (advanced)