DALI Commissioning Guide (Using a NPU) Contentsedincontrols.com/tech_files/eDIN_DALI_CommissioningGuide.pdf · DALI Commissioning Guide (Using a NPU) Mode Lighting (UK) Ltd. 2010

DALI Commissioning Guide (Using a NPU)

Mode Lighting (UK) Ltd. 2010 Page 1 of 17 Issue 2 20/10/2010

Contents

1 The eDIN DALI commissioning philosophy ............................................... 2

2 Requirements....................................................................................... 2

3 Notes .................................................................................................. 2

4 Pre-commissioning procedure ................................................................ 3

5 Creating an eDIN operational configuration.............................................. 5

6 Commissioning procedure...................................................................... 6

6.1 Finding ballasts .................................................................................... 6

6.2 Checking the search results ................................................................... 7

6.3 How to assign ballasts to eDIN channels.................................................. 8

6.4 How to test ballast assignment is correct ............................................... 11

6.5 How to re-assign ballasts that have been assigned incorrectly.................. 11

6.6 How to add more ballasts .................................................................... 12

6.7 How to replace a single ballast ............................................................. 13

6.8 How to replace multiple ballasts ........................................................... 13

6.9 How ballasts faults are detected/shown................................................. 14

7 Exporting and Importing DALI configuration........................................... 15

8 Advanced users who want to commission the system separately .............. 16

8.1 Importing DALI configuration into NPU once commissioning is complete .... 16

9 Document revision history ................................................................... 17



1 The eDIN DALI commissioning philosophy

eDIN DALI commissioning using an eDIN NPU was designed to hide away the

complexities of the DALI protocol and to require no knowledge of the long

(random) address/short addresses that ballasts have to be allocated.

The eDIN NPU automates the process and hides the long/short addresses from

the user. For advanced users who want to commission the ballasts by some

other method, see section 8 which explains how to do this and tie it in with the

eDIN configuration.

The eDIN commissioning procedure uses an alternate method of allocating

ballasts to groups than that of many other systems. Instead of the time

consuming process of lighting a ballast and asking the user to search the building

to find it, the eDIN NPU approach is to allow the user to choose ballasts one at a

time and by answering a series of at most six ‘yes/no’ questions to identify and

commission the ballast.

The DALI protocol allows ballasts to be controlled in three ways: Individually, in

groups or all as one (broadcast). eDIN allows control in groups or broadcast only

Each DALI group is treated as an eDIN channel and can be controlled as per any

other eDIN output channel including it’s use in a virtually unlimited number of

scenes (Not just 16) and any fade time from 0 seconds to 24 hours (not just the

16 fixed DALI fade times where the maximum fade time is 90s).

2 Requirements

Before commissioning can commence, the following requirements must be met :

i) The ballasts have power.

ii) The DALI bus is connected between the UBC module and the ballasts.

iii) The eDIN NPU is connected via the M-Bus connection to the eDIN UBC

module.

iv) The eDIN modules are powered.

v) The eDIN NPU is connected via the Ethernet connection to a PC running a web

browser and that the NPU/PC are configured so that the eDIN web page is

accessible.

3 Notes

This document assumes that the eDIN NPU contains at minimum, software

version 1.2.0.13 and the eDIN UBC module contain at minimum, software version

1.20. Previous versions will look visibly different and have a reduced number of

features.

The use of the Firefox web browser (V3.5 or greater) is recommended. There are

some known issues when using certain versions of Internet Explorer.

For clarity in this document, the eDIN channels belonging to the UBC module

have not been named and remain as per the default ‘DALI:Group 1’ etc. If

required, they can be renamed as per any other channel belonging to an eDIN

module.



4 Pre-commissioning procedure

To be able to commission the DALI ballasts

using the eDIN NPU web application, there must

be an eDIN UBC module in the configuration and

the UBC module must be on the correct address

as defined in the configuration.

By default, when added to the configuration, the

UBC module will be split into two sections –

‘Inputs’ and ‘Outputs’.

The 4 configurable IOs of the module default to

contact inputs and are therefore shown in the

‘Inputs’ section.

The DALI universe (That controls the ballasts) is

shown in the ‘Outputs’ section.

To set up the DALI mode that the UBC module

is operating in and the number of DALI groups

required, click on the module in the

configuration page. A dialog box as per the

screenshot to the left will appear.

If control of the ballasts in groups is required,

the ‘groups’ radio button must be selected and

the tick box next to all required groups ticked.

The selection of required groups is a feature to

minimise the amount of room taken by the

ballast module in the configuration web page.

In the configuration page, each group is

represented by a row, so to reduce space, only

the groups selected in this dialog box are

shown. It does not matter if more groups are

selected than are actually needed.

If broadcast mode is all that is required (i.e. where all ballasts act as one)

commissioning is not required. In this case, the ‘Outputs’ section of the UBC

module will be shown with only one DALI channel in the configuration page (as

per the screenshot at the top of this page).



To begin commissioning, click the

‘DALI management’ button on the

Monitor page (This button will

only be present if there is a UBC

module in the configuration)

A dialog as per the screenshot to the left will then

be shown which contains the number of groups as

previously selected.

To carry out commissioning, all ballasts must be

powered, as must the UBC module. The UBC

module must be connected to the NPU via the

M-Bus and be on the correct address as set in the

configuration. If the NPU cannot communicate with

the UBC module, an error message will be displayed

as show in the picture to the left.



5 Creating an eDIN operational configuration

Once a UBC module has been added to an eDIN configuration and the number of

eDIN channels (DALI groups) required have been selected, the operational

configuration (Adding scenes, setting dim levels, triggers etc.) can be modified

either before or after the DALI commissioning has been completed.

The operational configuration is separate from the DALI commissioning in that the

DALI channels belonging to the UBC module are treated as any other output

channel in the eDIN system. The difference is that they are linked to a DALI

group (Even if no ballasts have been commissioned and assigned to that group

yet.)

This means that the operational configuration can be written off-site if required

and the DALI ballasts commissioned and assigned to eDIN channels (DALI

Groups) later, once on-site.

The only thing to bear in mind is that the scenes/channel levels etc. cannot be

tested with the ballasts until the DALI commissioning has been completed.



6 Commissioning procedure

6.1 Finding ballasts

The first stage of the DALI commissioning

process is to find and identify all the ballasts

that are connected to the DALI bus.

Assuming that the NPU is as new and has not

been used previously to commission ballasts

and that section 4 has been completed, the

user will be presented with a web page as per

the picture on the left.

Only one button will exist in the

‘Commissioning tasks’ box, ‘Find all ballasts’.

Clicking this button starts a search procedure

which can take up to 15 minutes dependant

upon the number of ballasts on the bus

(Maximum of 64 as defined by the DALI

standard).

A warning box will then appear warning that

all existing data (held in the eDIN NPU) will be

lost. Click ‘OK’ and the search will begin.

As the ballasts are found they will appear in

the ‘new’ column. Assuming that the ballasts

have never been commissioned before, they

will appear in the unassigned row. If they

have been previously commissioned and

assigned a group (perhaps because they have

been previously used on a different system),

they will appear in one of the other rows. See

sections 6.6 and 6.7 for more information on

commissioning a system where ballasts have

been previously allocated to a group.

The ‘Commissioning tasks’ box at the bottom

will show the total number of ballasts found

so far.

If ‘Abort’ is pressed during the search, the

number of ballasts found so far will remain in

the ‘New’ column. To restart the search and

find all ballasts, click the ‘Wipe all ballasts and

re-find’ button that will now be present.

If the search is aborted and some ballasts have then been assigned groups as per

section 6.3. The remaining ballasts not found during the initial search can be

added as per section 6.6 (How to add more ballasts).



Once the search is complete, the

‘Commissioning tasks’ box will show two

buttons, the first to assign the ballasts found

to eDIN channels (DALI groups). The second,

to remove all ballasts previously found from

the NPU’s memory and start the search again.

This does not remove any group allocation

that has previously been programmed into the

ballasts

6.2 Checking the search results

It is important at the end of the search to check that the number of ballasts found

is the total expected. If any ballasts are not communicating due to wiring faults

etc., they cannot be commissioned. Faults should be rectified before

commissioning commences.

To test which ballasts are working, the DALI test menu on the UBC module can be

used. From this menu, all ballasts can be turned on and off (using broadcast

mode) to help find faults.

This diagram shows only the DALI test sub menu,

for the full diagram refer to the UBV module

installation guide.



6.3 How to assign ballasts to eDIN channels

Each DALI group is treated as an individual eDIN channel which can be controlled

as per any other eDIN output channel.

eDIN can control up to 16 channels/groups, a DALI group can contain any

number of ballasts (Up to the maximum of 64 defined by the DALI standard). For

eDIN to be able to control the ballasts and recall scenes etc. the ballasts must be

assigned to an eDIN channel (DALI group).

Once the ballasts have been found (Section 6.1), click the ‘Assign the xx ballasts

found’ button to begin the assignment process.

The NPU will then assign addresses to the

ballasts so it can talk to them individually.

During this process, a dialog box will appear

as per the picture to the left. The number of

programming operations left will be shown

until complete.

The ballast locator dialog will then be

shown.

6.3.1 Choose a ballast to assign

As described in Section 1, the user must first choose a physical ballast to assign.

The ballast must be visible during the next steps.

6.3.2 Answer ‘Yes’ or ‘No’ dependant upon whether the ballast is lit at full brightness.

Throughout a series of yes/no questions (maximum 6 per ballast to be identified)

a selection of ballasts are lit. Each time, the user must answer whether the

ballasts selected in section 6.3.1 is lit at full brightness or not.

Note that some ballasts (particularly fluorescent ballasts) can take a little while to

respond to the DALI commands. The NPU has no way of knowing whether a

ballast has reacted or not it is therefore advisable to wait a few seconds at each

new yes/no question to allow the ballasts brightness levels to stabilise.

If at the end of the set of questions, the selected ballasts is not lit, it is possible

that the ballast has a fault which must be rectified before it can be commissioned.



To do this, the group allocation can be aborted so that the fault can be found as

per section 6.2. In that case, once the fault(s) is rectified the allocation can

continue by clicking the ‘Assign the xx unassigned ballasts’ button that will now

be present on the DALI commissioning page.

Otherwise clicking the ‘Ok’ button will instruct the NPU to ignore the missing

ballast for the time being and will allow you to proceed to the next ballast.



6.3.3 Allocate selected ballast to a group

Through the process of questions in section xx the NPU identifies the ballast

chosen by the user which should still be lit at full brightness.

The user is then presented with a dialog

box where the located ballast can be

allocated to one of the eDIN channels

(DALI Group).

Select the eDIN channel(DALI Group) to assign the ballast to and click the ‘OK’

button.

If for some reason you do not want to

allocate this ballast to an eDIN channel

(DALI Group), you can choose the ‘Skip’

option. This will leave the ballast with

its existing assignment and the ballast

locator dialog box will proceed to the

next ballast.

If there are more ballasts to assign, the user is returned to step 6.3.1 where the

next ballast is chosen. The process is repeated until all ballasts are assigned.

If at any point the ‘Abort’ button is pressed, the user will be taken back to the

DALI commissioning page but there will now be two assignment buttons, one to

‘Re-assign any of the xx already assigned ballasts’ and the second to ‘Assign the

xx unassigned ballasts’. The unassigned ballasts can then be allocated (or the

already assigned ballasts be re-assigned) by clicking the appropriate button and

assigning the ballasts as per section 0.

The system of answering a series of yes/no questions was designed to prevent

the commissioner having to search the building to find a particular ballast. If all

ballasts can be seen from the commissioning location, the process can be

speeded up by answering yes to all questions until the one remaining ballast is lit

at full brightness and then choosing the eDIN channel (DALI group) to assign it

to.

Once complete, the allocated ballasts will appear

in the ‘Ok’ column next to the eDIN

channel/group they have been assigned to.



6.4 How to test ballast assignment is correct

Once the ballasts are assigned to groups (Section 0). They can be tested to

ensure the group allocation is correct.

To the left of each row in the Module Summary box is a ‘ ‘ symbol. Clicking this

symbol sets all ballasts in that group to full brightness. The symbol then changes

to a ‘ ‘. Clicking the symbol again will set that group to dim and back to a ‘ ‘

symbol.

6.5 How to re-assign ballasts that have been assigned

incorrectly

If any ballasts needs to be re-assigned to a different eDIN channel (DALI Group),

the ‘Re-assign any of the xx assigned ballasts’ button can be used. The

procedure is as per section 0 except that the ballast(s) selected is the one that is

to be-reassigned.

When there are no more ballasts to be re-assigned, the ‘ABORT’ button can be

used to return to the main DALI management page.



6.6 How to add more ballasts

If more ballasts are added to the bus, the ‘Check for added or removed ballasts’

button can be used, this will search the bus for ballasts unknown to the NPU (As

per section 6.1) and add them to the unassigned row of the Module summary in

the New column, unless they have been previously programmed/used in which

case they will show up in the row corresponding to their previous group

assignment.

If the new ballast(s) appear in the unassigned

row, they will have a ‘+’ symbol next to the

number of ballasts found.

Clicking the ‘+’ symbol adds the ballast(s) into

the DALI configuration as ‘Unassigned’ so they

can be assigned to an eDIN channel (DALI

group) as per Section 0

If the new ballast(s) appear in any other row,

they will still have the ‘+’ symbol which will add

them to the DALI configuration as unassigned.

They will also have a ‘ ’ symbol, clicking this

will automatically assign the ballasts to the

eDIN channel/group according to the row that

they are displayed in.

The new ballasts must be added to the DALI configuration (ie. appear in the OK

column) before they can be allocated to an eDIN channel (DALI group).



6.7 How to replace a single ballast

Once a ballast has been replaced, click the

‘Check for added or removed ballasts’ button.

As per the screenshot to the left, the removed

ballast will appear in the ‘Lost’ column as the

eDIN NPU can no longer communicate with it

and the new ballast will appear in the ‘New’

column.

Click the ‘ ’ symbol next to the ‘Lost’ ballast

to remove it from the configuration. Then

click the ‘+’ symbol next to ‘New’ ballast and

assign it to the correct eDIN channel (DALI

group) as per Section 6.3.

As per Section 6.6, if the new ballast has already been assigned a group by an

external DALI commissioning tool, the new ballast will appear in one of the

assigned rows and will have a ‘ ’ symbol in addition to the ‘+’ symbol. Clicking

the ‘ ’ symbol will automatically add it to the NPU configuration in it’s pre-

programmed group. Clicking the ‘+’ symbol will add it the configuration as

unassigned so that it can be allocated a group later.

6.8 How to replace multiple ballasts

The replacement of multiple ballasts is the same as that of single ballasts (Section

6.7) except that multiple ballasts will appear in the ‘Lost’ and ‘New’ columns.



6.9 How ballasts faults are detected/shown

DALI ballasts faults are shown in the main

‘Monitor’ page, not in the DALI management

page.

Faults are only shown per group. Individual

ballasts faults are not shown in eDIN, only

that one of the ballasts in that group has a

problem. The group(s) with the fault is

indicated in yellow in the web page.

A ballast that has a lamp fault (detected and

reported by the ballast) are shown with a ‘ ’

icon next to the group name as per the first

screenshot on this page.

A ballast that will not communicate with the

UBC module will be shown with a ‘ ’ symbol

next to the group name as per the second

screenshot.

Note that the existence of faults will only be updated when the faulty ballast is set

to a dim level (ie. not 0%). Most ballasts cannot detect and therefore report a

fault when the lamp is off. Equally it cannot be determined if the fault has been

corrected when the lamp is off.

The monitor page will not continuously update, to see the latest status, the web

page must be refreshed.



7 Exporting and Importing DALI configuration

The NPU has the ability to export/import the DALI configuration (ie. ballast

addresses and group allocation) to a file that can be stored and retrieved. This is

not required in normal use as the NPU retains this data, even during power cuts.

This feature is useful if an NPU ever needs replacing as the DALI commissioning

data can then be imported into the new NPU without re-commissioning.

Note that this DALI configuration is only of any use to the specific set of ballasts

used for commissioning as it contains data specific to those ballasts.

The export/import function is found in the DALI management page toolbar as

shown in the screenshot below.

In addition to exporting the DALI configuration as a .bin (binary) file that the

eDIN NPU can import later, the configuration can be exported as a CSV file which

can be viewed in an application such as Microsoft Excel.

The CSV file contains the following data :

The UBC module’s M-Bus address.

The name of the eDIN channels within the UBC module.

The long (random) address, short address and group number of each ballast

known to the UBC module.



8 Advanced users who want to commission the

system separately

As described in section 5, the operational configuration and the DALI

commissioning are not explicitly linked. Therefore if required, the DALI

commissioning can be carried out using external DALI commissioning tools.

If DALI fault reporting is not required, the eDIN NPU does not care what the long

(random)/short address of the ballasts are, only what group they are in as the

group is linked to an eDIN channel in the UBC module.

Therefore if commissioning externally, the group allocation of the ballasts must

match the eDIN channels as defined in the NPU’s operational configuration (i.e.

eDIN UBC Module Channel 5 = DALI Group 1, eDIN UBC Module Channel 6 =

DALI Group 2 etc.)

Note that the eDIN UBC module’s channels start from number 5 because channels

1-4 are the configurable channels of the module.

This means that as per section 4, there must be as many eDIN channels (DALI

groups) in the UBC module configuration as DALI groups that are going to be

externally allocated.

8.1 Importing DALI configuration into NPU once commissioning is complete

If the DALI commissioning has been carried out externally and fault reporting is

required, the externally commissioned ballast data can be read by NPU to enable

this.

As per section 6.1, carry out a search of the bus. The pre-commissioned ballasts

will appear in the ‘New’ column in whichever row they have been externally

allocated to.

Once the search is complete, simply click

the ‘ ’ symbol next to each number of

ballasts appearing in the ‘New’ column to

add them to the eDIN NPU DALI

configuration.

Once in the NPU’s DALI configuration, they will be periodically queried for lamp

faults etc. and any faults will be reported on the monitor page as per section 6.9.



9 Document revision history

Revision Issue Date Changes made

1 14 Oct 2010 First Issue

2 20 Oct 2010 Ballast allocation to groups dialog image updated

Description of skipping group allocation added.

Documents

DALI Commissioning Guide (Using a NPU) Contentsedincontrols.com/tech_files/eDIN_DALI_CommissioningGuide.pdf · DALI Commissioning Guide (Using a NPU) Mode Lighting (UK) Ltd. 2010