DALI
Part 3 — Reference.
Managers ribbon tab → Dali manager
21.1 Two ways to do DALI — pick the right one first
DALI is a lighting bus in its own right. iNELS3 reaches it two different ways, and they are not interchangeable. Choosing the wrong one wastes a day on site.
CU3-09M
RC3-610M/DALI
What it is
A central unit with a built-in DALI master
A room controller with DALI outputs
Addressing the ballasts
In iDM3, using the Dali manager
Externally, with a DALI commissioning tool
Ballast parameters
Read and written from the Dali manager
Set externally, before you touch iDM3
What you do in iDM3
Commission the whole bus
Type in the address each ballast already has
Covered in
§21.2 – §21.6
§21.7
The Dali manager works only with a CU3-09M. It is the only central unit with a DALI master, and the manager talks to that master. If the site has any other CU, the Dali manager is not the route — and the DALI addressing has to happen outside iDM3 entirely.
Establish which hardware is on site before you quote the job. "We'll do the DALI in iDM3" is only true on a CU3-09M. With an RC3-610M/DALI you need a DALI commissioning tool and someone who knows how to use it — a different skill and a different day's work.
The CU3-09M's DALI bus needs its own power supply. DALI is not powered by the iNELS BUS. Budget for a DALI bus power supply or the ballasts will not respond at all.
DALI addresses run 0x00 to 0x3F (0 to 63) — 64 ballasts per bus.
21.2 CU3-09M — getting to the Dali manager
Project ribbon tab → Device manager.
Select the central unit → New slave →
Internal-DALI-Master→ OK. This is the CU3-09M's own DALI bus. It has no parameters of its own.Close the Device manager and save.
Managers ribbon tab → Dali manager.
Select the DALI master — double-click it, or highlight it and click ✓ OK.
You are now talking to the DALI bus live, so the central unit must be connected (Chapter 23). The Dali manager reads from and writes to real ballasts; it is not an offline editor.
21.3 The toolbar
Master
Switch between ballasts and masters (e.g. DALI sensors such as DLS3-1 or DMD3-1)
Add new
Address only new ballasts, leaving existing addresses alone
Search
Read the current ballast addresses from the bus
New DALI
Delete all addresses and reassign from scratch
Change address
Apply the address you typed to the selected ballast
Delete address
Remove a duplicate address
TEST
Blink the output 0 % → 100 % for one second
MIN
Set the output to its configured minimum
MAX
Set it to its configured maximum
OFF
Switch it off
Read params
Load the ballast's current parameters, groups and state
Write params
Apply your changes to the ballast
While working, the buttons show progress states — Changing address, Deleting address, Reading params, Writing params.
TEST, MIN, MAX and OFF all work on a single ballast, a ballast group, or every ballast on the DALI bus.
Use "New DALI" only on a first commissioning. It deletes every address and reassigns them in random order. On an already-configured system that means every ballast in the building swaps identity with another, and every wire you have drawn now controls the wrong light. To add ballasts to a working system, use Add new.
21.4 Addressing
New ballasts ship without addresses, so a Search on a fresh installation shows nothing on the left — that is expected, not a fault.
The typical first commissioning:
New DALI — assigns addresses to everything.
Search — read back what was assigned.
Work through the ballasts using TEST to identify which light is which physically.
Select a ballast, click its address field, type the last digits of the address you want, and click Change address.
Search again to confirm.
The address field shows DALI 0x00 style hexadecimal, editable by clicking it with the left mouse button. Valid range 0x00–0x3F.
Duplicate addresses are flagged with a red exclamation mark in the list on the left. The Dali manager will not write a duplicate, but one can arrive from an existing installation. Clear it with Delete address, then reassign.
21.5 Ballast parameters
Select a ballast to see its Parameters, Groups, Scenes and Status.
Parameters
Act. level
Current output level
Power on level
Level adopted when power is applied
System fail level
Level adopted when the DALI bus fails
Min / Max
Configured dimming limits
Phys. min
The ballast's physical minimum — a hardware property
Fade time
Time for a commanded level change
Fade rate
Rate of continuous dimming
System fail level is worth setting deliberately: it decides whether a room goes dark or goes to full when the DALI bus drops.
Status
Status of ballast
Overall state
Lamp failure
The lamp has failed
Lamp arc. power ON
The lamp is lit
Limit error
A commanded level fell outside Min/Max
Fade ready
A fade has completed
Reset state
The ballast is in its reset state
Miss short addr.
The ballast has no short address
Power failure
Power was lost
Lamp failure is the useful one on a live site — it tells you which fitting has failed without walking the building.
Groups and Scenes
DALI has its own group and scene concept, held in the ballasts themselves — separate from iNELS3 groups.
DALI groups and scenes
Everything is DALI, and you want the ballasts to respond together on the DALI bus
iNELS3 groups
The group mixes DALI with relays or other iNELS outputs
Assignments are written to the ballast with Write params, then verified with Read params.
21.6 RC3-610M/DALI — externally addressed
Everything above needs a CU3-09M. The RC3-610M/DALI works differently, and the difference is fundamental: iDM3 does not address these ballasts and does not configure them.
The RC3-610M/DALI is a room controller with relay outputs, inputs, temperature sensors and 16 DALI output channels. The Dali manager cannot see them — there is no DALI master for it to talk to. So the commissioning happens outside iDM3, and iDM3 is only told the result.
The order of work
Step 1 is not an iDM3 task at all. You need a DALI commissioning tool — a handheld programmer or a PC interface with DALI software — to give each ballast a short address (0–63) and set its levels and fade times. If that has not been done, there is nothing for iDM3 to point at.
Get the addressing done before you arrive to program. On an RC3-610M site, the DALI work and the iNELS work are two separate jobs. If the electrician has not addressed the ballasts, you cannot proceed — and no amount of iDM3 configuration will help.
Step 2 — Record the addresses
Whoever addresses the ballasts must hand over a list:
0
Downlight 1
Living room
1
Downlight 2
Living room
2
Pendant
Kitchen
Without this you are guessing, and the only way to recover it is to walk the building switching addresses on and off one at a time.
Step 3 — Add the unit in iDM3
Project → Device manager.
Select the bus master under the CU → New unit →
RC3-610M-DALI→ OK.Set the unit's Address and Description as for any other unit (Chapter 16).
The unit carries 48 device slots in total — its relays, inputs, temperature sensors and the 16 DALI output channels.
Step 4 — Enter each DALI address
Expand the unit, select a DALI output device, and set its parameters:
DALI address.
The short address that fixture already has, from your list
Use default state:
Whether the output falls back to a set level if communication is lost
Default output state:
The level it falls back to, when the above is enabled
Repeat for each of the 16 channels you are using, and describe each one — Living room downlight 1 — so the names mean something later.
This is the whole of DALI configuration in iDM3 for an RC3-610M. There is no search, no addressing, no parameter read/write, no test button. You are telling iDM3 which address to send commands to, nothing more.
Set "Use default state" on anything that matters. If the DALI link drops, an output with no default simply holds its last value. On escape routes or a reception area, define what it should do instead.
Step 5 — Wire it
From here it is ordinary dimming. Each DALI output is an analog consumer, so everything from Tutorial 3 applies unchanged — ANALOG_SET_LEVEL_50, ANALOG_LEVEL_UP with ANALOG_STOP_LEVEL_CHANGE on Long up, ramps, groups.
Put the DALI outputs in an Analog group (Tutorial 4) and one button dims the whole room.
If a light does not respond
Was the ballast ever addressed?
It needs a short address from a commissioning tool
Does DALI address. match the list?
The commonest error — a transposed digit
Two fixtures respond together
Duplicate addresses — re-address externally
Nothing on the whole channel
DALI bus power supply, or the wiring to that channel
Wrong fixture responds
The handover list is wrong — re-verify address by address
Note that none of these are fixable in iDM3 except a mistyped address. The rest are DALI-side problems needing the commissioning tool.
21.7 Practical advice
Both routes:
Address before you program
Wires point at addresses; changing them afterwards breaks everything
Record the final address list
You will need it the next time somebody changes a fitting
Provide DALI bus power
DALI is not powered from the iNELS BUS
CU3-09M only:
Use TEST to map lights to addresses
Guessing from a drawing is how installations end up mislabelled
Never run New DALI on a live system
It reshuffles every address
Always Read params after Write params
It is the only confirmation you get
RC3-610M/DALI only:
Confirm the ballasts are addressed before your visit
Nothing can be done in iDM3 until they are
Get the address list in writing
Recovering it means walking the building fixture by fixture
Set a default output state
An unaddressed fallback holds the last value when the link drops