Artistic Licence Rail-DALI, the all-in-one DMX/DALI converter, is being superseded by two new products: Rail-DMX-DALI and Rail-DALI-DMX
Rail-DMX-DALI
The frequency with which DMX and DALI systems are being used together is continually increasing and has now become common practice. The need to control DALI fixtures with DMX controllers has similarly increased and become more sophisticated, to the point where simple conversion is no longer adequate.
The new requirement is for a DMX controller that can control DALI fixtures in the way they have been designed to operate, rather than trying to force a DALI fixture to behave like a DMX fixture. DALI is slow in comparison to DMX and therefore has more of a control structure than DMX which must be taken into consideration at the product design stage.
Rail-DMX-DALI has been designed with this knowledge, combined with customer feedback, to give the best of both worlds and allow seamless integration between these two vastly different protocols.
Rail-DMX-DALI offers the following features:
4 DALI Bus Outputs. Each Bus is capable of controlling 64 ballasts
Channel Control (Broadcast or Unicast) - a DMX value can be used to control single ballasts or broadcast to all ballasts on a single output
Group Control (Broadcast or Unicast) - a DMX value can be used to control individual groups on the separate outputs or all groups on all outputs
Scenes (Broadcast or Unicast) - scene commands can be sent out globally or to the individual outputs
Each of these three different control techniques can be setup and used simultaneously
Dimming Curve - Rail-DMX-DALI can change the DMX linear dimming curve to a DALI exponential curve to allow fixtures to match existing DALI fixtures.
Connection
Housed in a standard DIN Rail enclosure, Rail-DMX-DALI can be mounted easily within a control cabinet or surface mounted using the integral mounting clips.
Rail-DMX-DALI complies with the DMX512-A specification and can be controlled with any DMX controller.
For DALI usage, Rail-DMX-DALI requires a DALI Bus PSU to allow data exchange between the unit and the DALI fixtures, as stated by DALI the specification.
Configuration
DIP switches are used to configure Broadcast or Unicast control options. The start addresses are set using RDM, each conversion channel can be set individually. RDM is also used to disable control options, if not required.
Rail-DMX-DALI can be considered as a DALI controller, however, it does not have the capability to commission the DALI ballast. This should be done using DALI-Scope.
Outputs
Rail-DMX-DALI has four Bus outputs with each output able to accommodate 64 ballasts. When in Channel Unicast mode, Rail-DMX-DALI will interrogate the individual Buses to map out any ballasts that are present. This ensures that only required data is transmitted so no bandwidth is wasted.
Control
There are three control groups within Rail-DMX-DALI: Channels, Groups & Scenes.
Channels: This group can either Broadcast to the individual outputs or Unicast to each channel on each output. This option requires either 4 or 256 DMX channels respectively.
Groups: This option can be Broadcast to all the DALI outputs or Unicast to each output. It sends group levels to all ballasts that will in turn react if they have been assigned to that group. This option requires either 16 or 64 DMX channels.
Scenes: Unlike the other two groups, the Scene conversion can transmit to all outputs and the individual DALI outputs simultaneously allowing greater flexibility.
Applications
An example of a common application for Rail-DMX-DALI would be the control of house lighting from a DMX controller. With Rail-DMX-DALI, the DMX lighting desk can have independent control over the individual ballasts, but also use the Groups and Scenes functions to quickly control all fixtures and avoid speed issues.
For more information on Rail-DMX-DALI and Rail-DALI-DMX, visit the Artistic Licence website at http://www.artisticlicence.com/