Lost in Translation: Where People Get DALI Wrong (1)
The DALI (Digital Addressable Lighting Interface) standard has had a very uphill battle in the USA. Lots of resistance, mostly quoted to it being problematic and expensive. On the other hand DALI has almost 100% market share in Europe and similarly in Asia and Middle East. DALI Alliance has been trying to change this, addressing the North American market with several campaigns, but they have not been too successful so far. And the reason is, despite DALI being a very good technology, there are many misconceptions, false myths, contradictory statements (even by the DALI people themselves). Here I'll address some key concepts that people often get wrong or are falsely propagated even by those who should know in the first place. DALI is polarity free. I have heard this so many times. Even from the founding fathers of DALI. So yes, in principle it is, but in practice it is not. DALI bus signaling works by shorting the bus. There are two wires and there is small DC (around 18V) current ...