Beckhoff&WAGO&DALI

Lighting dimming using DALI protocol.

It all started with setting the task of dimming lighting in a smart home system. It so happened that I dealt with this task on the Beckhoff CX9020 controller for the first time, so not everything turned out easy and simple.
Initially, as soon as I connected the appropriate devices to the bus, the KS2000 controller software did not see the DALI modules, there was no communication. I could only guess about the reasons for this phenomenon. It was written on the forums that Arlight products are of poor quality and have many complaints. I read that 1 to 10 dimmers are workable. As an engineer assigned to solve a problem like this, it is wrong to rely on only one opinion. Accordingly, if there is a task and the solution does not go, then it is necessary to divide this task into parts, solving each of the parts in turn and sequentially. It should be noted that I have already studied at Beckhoff and at WAGO RUS, in which they gave me the necessary knowledge to connect devices on the Dali bus, but it must be understood that without practical application, experience over the years turns into residual and extremely superficial knowledge. Accordingly, if you do not have a connection between devices, then first of all it is worth understanding the theory of the data transfer process and understanding what the network consists of, what network components are present and how information is transmitted over wires. It is also important to understand who is the initiator of sending telegrams and who is the recipient, what methods of issuing telegrams are present and can be applied.

In order for the experience with setting up the network to be successful and there was some kind of guarantee of obtaining a result, I asked WAGO RUS for a stand for connecting DALI bus devices. The company's policy at WAGO RUS is quite friendly towards its potential integrators and, accordingly, they did not refuse me to issue a stand, on the contrary, they helped me with the selection of the necessary equipment.

The result was a stand in the following composition:

I started by checking the middle level, namely the DALI dimmer device bus. I needed a USB-DALI adapter from Tridonic. Agreed with Eremin Dmitry company "Techliving" (//techliving.ru) on consulting assistance. They had this adapter in stock and, accordingly, I had no choice but to bring all the equipment I had (Arlight dimmers) for performance testing. Many thanks to my colleagues for lending a helping hand.

During the verification process, it became clear that when setting up such systems and devices, there are unspoken rules that must be strictly observed, namely:

1. Diode tapes must be connected to devices (I neglected this at the beginning);

2. The DALI master must be configured and issue certain packets so that slaves can see that the bus master is present;

3. The DALI bus must be powered by a DC voltage of at least 15 or 17 Volts.Dmitry presented me with an Osram dimming switch for my further experiments. This is such a box in the form of an ordinary light switch, with a spinning core. This device is necessary so that I can turn on and off simultaneously all slave devices on the bus by sending broadcast packets. A very useful thing, it helps to solve all issues with bus power during setup and allows you to quickly turn everything off. It helped a lot when I realized that the tapes get incredibly hot at 100% power. And in the future, this helped a lot, since I could set up a bus with devices, regardless of whether the controller works for me or not. I could at any time completely turn it off and turn on the lighting using this switch-twist.

After I made sure that the Arlight dimming drivers worked and were able to drive the LED strips on their own, it was time to re-engineer the controller software. I started with the WAGO controller.

WAGO is configured as follows:

• We check whether there are 16 Volts in the bus and whether all devices are connected according to the instruction manual.

• Download on the Internet WAGO DALI Configurator

• Open DALI Configurator via Wago IO Check

• Find and press the network initialization point and arrange the device addresses in random order

• If we see that the connected devices have been detected, then by sending commands to turn on we can see that we have actually lit up. Accordingly, we write down which lamp belongs to which address, in relation to the geometry of the room.

• I had a ready-made Codesys example provided by WAGO. Accordingly, I had to bind it to my existing controller and make it work with existing DALI device addresses.

Wago DALI Configurator

Beckhoff is configured as follows:

• We connect according to the manufacturer's scheme in accordance with the instruction manual

• Check the voltage on the DALI bus, it should be 15-17 Volts

• Run the KS2000 program. Then we connect to the controller in accordance with the instruction manual and the description of the connection to the DALI bus. It should be borne in mind that the manual was compiled a long time ago and there are some inaccuracies. I was very confused by the red module indicator in the KS2000, which symbolizes an error on the bus. If it is not lit on the physical module itself, do not pay attention to it.

• We go into the random addressing section and start a search, which should show how many addresses there are on the bus.

• On the main tab, run the program to initialize the found devices.

• The program should show the presence of devices and give them temporary names

• Alternately issuing commands for incremental tasks to the addresses of dimming drivers, we control the devices.

KS2000

Thus, we see slight differences in the settings of equipment from different manufacturers. However, in my personal opinion, setting up the WAGO controller is still somewhat easier than the BECKHOFF controller, since there are more materials posted on the net and these materials are more friendly to the Russian-speaking audience.

There are no special complaints about the Arlight drivers (dimmers), everything works great, despite the small errors made in the instructions. I admit that these are subtleties of translation. The only, but quite tangible minus, I would call some barely noticeable squeak, which becomes audible when the overall background noise decreases (at night). I believe that when operating a smart home, it is possible to break the circuits through additional starters that turn off the total voltage from the entire lighting circuit. Then there will simply be nothing to squeak. The set device addresses are retained after power is restored.

#Beckhoff, #Dali, #Wago, #dimming, #instruction, #connection, #smarthome, #Arlight, #automation, #PCS, #lighting, #Dali