DALI Gateway DayLight harvesting

Hi all,

I'm recently finishing a DALI control project. There are over 150 Ballast distributed in two floors. I have a DALI Gateway a PAC and MultiSensor. The project consists in measuring the ambient light with the Multi PEIRL sensor and dimming the DALI Ballast to the corresponding light level target.
I have already commission and mapped the Dali ballasts to the UI Dali Gateway in the Toolkit. During night, the occupancy function of the multi sensor is enable and the light level function is disable, to turn ON the Ballast durning night if someone is still working.
Durin the day the ballast should be dimming constantly based on the ambient light. The thing is that I can't do the constant dimming, I can only dim the ballast to a certain level, and with the schedule take the ballast to another level. But the multi sensor is not working to control the ballast

Do you have any ideas how to make it work?

.

GERMAN

 

Hi,

Can I get a little more info about your setup:

- Are your DALI groups in Lighting application or DALI application?
- Is your DALI gateway set to match ramp rates?
- Is there any trigger to turn the lights group ON for light level (Light level maintenance I believe do not turn the lights ON/OFF)
- Have you tried to see if the solution works on C-bus side? OR what does the application log show? Does it show commands sent by Multisensor?
- What testing have you done so far?

Thanks!

 

- I got the DALI gateway in a DALI application, but I have the multi sensor in Lighting application.

- I just tick on the box for match ramp rates, what does it do this?

-There is no trigger to turns the lights ON, I have a relay also connect to give energy to the circuits. Should I try to turn on first the circuits and then to light level maintenace?

-The application log show the de DaLI group is some, but it does not show evry DALI group that is ON.

- I have been able to control each ballast individually and set them on certain percentage during the day. But I cannot make the ballast to follow the light level requiere during certain period of time.

 

The DALI gateway and the multisensors should be on the same application.

The ramp rate used by a DALI ballast is stored inside the ballast. The 'Match ramp rates' function manually sets the ramp rate in the ballasts to match the ramp rate specified by the C-Bus command. Then it sends the command to set the level of the ballast. This means there is a slight delay introduced between C-Bus and DALI but at least the ramp rates always match.

Turning off power to the DALI ballasts is not recommended by the ballast manufacturers. If you want the lights off you are supposed to turn them off using a DALI command but leave the ballasts permanently powered. It is quite possible that the ballast is missing the command sent by the Multisensor as it may be turned off or still warming up when the command is received.

The Application Log shows C-Bus messages received by Toolkit only after Toolkit has connected to the network. If some groups were turned on before Toolkit connected to the network, the Application log won't show the command that turned these groups on.

Confirm that the Multisensor can turn the ballast on and off first (without disconnecting power to the ballast). Once this is confirmed, you can look at the Light Level Maintenance feature.

 

Agreed with Newman's response.

You can reconfigure your DALI gateway in Lighting application (this is not essential but I just like the fact that every C-bus device can talk to lighting application and less fuss is needed to change things to secondry application) be mindful when you create groups in lighting when in multiple network, duplex configured netwrok bridge will enable groups to respond to commands from adjacent networks (The group address have to be unique).

As Newman mentioned, use the OFF command on DALI rather than powering off the ballast, one of the feature of DALI ballast is "Power failure recovery" which by default is set to goto MAX when power is restored, not all ballast support to go to previous known level.

I personally aviod using "match ramp rates". To get a smooth dimming output untick this option and within the ballast Fade setting change it from <0.707 to 4 sec. I have tested this configuration and it works very well.

So for your setup I would suggest using PACA to send a scehduled MIN command, lets say at sunrise, this will turn the group ON and from there on in the lux level sensor will dictate the level required for diming. And when lights are required to be turned off (Office Shutdown etc.) you can have another schedule / Scene to send OFF command to the desired ballast. I believe you can also trun the group on according to the lux using the bank switch tab in the multisensor, please have a read at the help file for this tab.

Please also note that Lux level maintenance is a game of patience, it does take a little time for the light level to ramp up. I would test the functionality by setting a very high lux level target and then blocking out the LUX sensor so that it receive zero lux, this will genrate commands for the group to ramp up. Remember for diming / ramping the group has to be on any other state then OFF.

Hope this helps.

 

Ok, thank you both.

I do have a PACA that sends an schedule that changes the light level sensor to occupancy sensor. Throughout the day (7:00 a.m. to 7:00 p.m.) is light level, during the night it function as occupancy, past 10:30 p.m. the office shuts downs.

I'll try to turn ON and OFF the ballast without disconnecting the power.

Also I have written some code in the Logic Engine to control dimming throughout the day.



if (GetLightingLevel("LLEnableDisable1-14") = 100%) then

begin
SetSceneLevel("ILUMINACION DALI (29/30)",GetLightingLevel ("LightLevel1-14",0);
Delay(10);
end


Where LIGHTLEVEL1-14 is a block on the light level tab, and is active, and the LLEnableDisable1-14 enables the light level sensor.

 

But the groups addresses LightLevel1-14, LLEnableDisable1-14 are in lighting application. I have try to put them on the DALI application, but the logic won't run.

 

HI,

I think you will need to edit your statements to include dali application rather than lighting in logic for logic to work. I find right click insert feature easy to use.

 

I think I just had a break through. The multi sensor still in lighting app and dali gateway in dali app.

I just change the code for something like this. I checked in the application log and for some reason me light level group address wasn't ON.

The code I use is this.

if (GetLightingLevel("LLEnableDisable1-14") = 100%) and
(GetLightingLevel("LightLevel1-14") > 0%) then

begin
SetSceneLevel("ILUMINACION DALI (29/30)", GetLightingLevel("LightLevel1-14"), 0);
Delay(10);
end

else if (GetLightingLevel("LLEnableDisable1-14") = 100%) and
(GetLightingLevel("LightLevel1-14") = 0%) then

begin
SetLightingLevel("LightLevel1-14", 1%, 0);

end;


Right now it seems to be working just fine, now I have to calibrate the sensor light livel maintenace.

 

I am a ballast engineer of DALI and 0-10V.

Using DALI ballasts and digital sensor, you need to inquire level of sensor periodly and set the DALI ballasts to a preseted level. however, if the set level is big difference with the before level, the brightness will change much suddenly and people not feel comfortable.

Using analog sensor and 0-10V ballast may have better performance in dimming, brightness of lamps will change instantly and smoothly when light of circumstance changed. however, shut off lamp will be more difficult, but you can use an extra relay to do the job.