Penn State
Met Office
IWM
Legoland
Yoshikawa Building
- Internet Control. The system can be controlled and monitored via any PC with a web browser. Users in the UK, Austria and Germany have controlled the Penn State DALI lighting laboratory from their desktops. Also, system performance and energy consumption can be monitored from anywhere on earth. The lab has a web camera with zoom, pan and rotate options and a separate website that allows remote users to observe the changing lighting effects.
- Green Building Points. The U.S. Green Building Council's LEED certification program (www.usgbc.org) gives a maximum of three credits directly related to lighting. Because the DALI software performs automatic light energy monitoring and automatic ballast monitoring, four or more additional LEED credits can be obtained in the Indoor Air Quality and Energy and Atmosphere categories.
- Luminaires with Changing Colour and Intensity Distributions. Many colour combinations and different intensity distributions become possible. Moeck installed two lamps with an orange and a blue filter for the downward component and blue filters for the two lamps in the wings. The colours mix to white on the workplane.
- Facility Management. Remote control enables facility managers to reduce maintenance staff significantly. Every lamp and ballast can be checked online. Therefore, all lighting systems in all branch offices of agencies, companies and government institutions can be checked every day. Facility managers can find out precisely when and where a lamp or ballast failed, and they can schedule maintenance crews accordingly on the spot and only if necessary, instead of sending them out every week to every facility and do a costly manual check.
The lab at Penn State is meant to educate and clear up misconceptions about DALI in the lighting community. The misunderstandings are understandable. It's a new system.
"Unreliable", "expensive", "too complicated" and "only for small applications", are some of the arguments. Penn State students add lights to the system and address problems in a matter of minutes. The software is easy to use. One problem is that standard electronic dimming ballasts are somewhat smaller than DALI dimming ballasts, which can be a minor issue in CFL downlights.
Finally, DALI is poised to change office lighting design. Office lighting does not have to be static, and light sources do not have to be white. The future office achieves many lighting patterns according to time of day, occupancy patterns, rebates, energy and demand charges, daylight levels, daylight colours and varying functions and desired moods. The future light source achieves many intensity distributions and colours that are variable. The key is to assign a dimming ballast with an individual address for each lamp. In this way, many colour and luminance patterns can be achieved. Current developments include controls for blinds and dimming controls for incandescent and tungsten halogen loads. Future developments will include software that performs purpose-driven lighting control based on load shedding, time of day, temperature, occupancy, user preferences and input from the Internet. DALI is a convenient tool for lighting designers to make dynamic and individual controllable lighting happen, and for facility managers to control and monitor lighting systems from anywhere in the world.
Lighting Control Projects
Dali Lighting Lab debuts at Penn State
With an area of approximately 1,300 sq. ft., the DALI lab is managed by Dr. Martin Moeck, assistant professor of architectural engineering at Penn State, and includes a combination of downlights with compact fluorescent lamps, wallwashers, spotlights and direct/indirect pendants. Manufacturers providing lamps and fixtures for the lab include Erco, Zumtobel Staff, Peerless and OSRAM Sylvania. In addition, Moeck and his students built six colour-changing fixtures equipped with four lamps each.
One of the lab's major goals is to sell engineers on some lesser-known advantages of DALI. The potential of DALI is known, and much has been written about its flexibility. However, four major lighting design advantages that have not yet been discussed are:
To demonstrate the Met Office's commitment to the environment, Stratus, the consortium that constructed the new building, was contracted to achieve the Building Research Establishment's 'Excellent' standard under its Environmental Assessment Method (BREEAM). Philips Lighting energy efficient lighting helped achieve this benchmark to the 2001 standard.
Peter Clayton-White, Property Management Engineer for the Met Office commented: "Philips' sustainable lighting design complimented the Met Office's own stipulations for environmental responsibility. Extensive use was made of T5 fluorescent technology, High Frequency dimmable ballasts and the ECS - Philips LightMaster 100 control system.
Sustainable lighting not only reduces energy costs but limits mercury emissions as well. Whilst we encourage recycling, by choosing long-life lamps fewer trips to the landfill or recycler are needed from the outset which benefits us all in the long run."
By incorporating the ECS - Philips LightMaster 100 control system into the scheme further performance efficiencies were achieved. This, therefore, provided the Met Office with the benefit of effective operations and reduced running costs whilst adhering to the company's policy of environmental responsibility. Due to the lack of ceiling, the control sensors were built into the luminaire beam with the added benefit of keeping the number of additional components to a minimum.
The main performance tasks required by the Met Office were three fold. Firstly, daylight linking ensures that the system automatically dims the luminaires so that a constant level of light is maintained in the working space.
Presence detection was also used. This is one of the simplest ways to control lighting within a given area. The sensor responds to the movement of body heat within a specified zone, switching the lights on or off. A time delay is built in to avoid unwanted switching if a person is still for a period of time within the space or zone.
Lastly, the Met Office made use of LightMaster 100's ability to manage statutory testing and monitoring of emergency lighting, with the advantage that only the Permanent and Switch live feeds to the specific emergency luminaires are tested. Standard luminaires continue to operate as normal.
Founded in 1917, the Imperial War Museum is a multi-branch national museum that records the story of twentieth century conflict from the Great War onwards. Amongst the collections on display at the museum are works of art, aircraft, armoured fighting vehicles, as well as medals and decorations. Helvar worked closely with the Museum to create a lighting control scheme appropriate for such a rich and varied environment. The Imagine system was chosen for its ability to provide a wide variety of scene setting levels to highlight the exhibits, alongside appropriate light levels for background ambience.
"After twenty years good service, it made sense to choose a Helvar system for our upgrade," says Andrew Lark of the Imperial War Museum. "The Imagine system fits our needs perfectly: it is easy to use, simple to programme, and delivers the results we required."
Installed by FTP Building Services of Kent, the system consists of fourteen Imagine dimmer racks controlled by three scenesets. The system is suited to a wide range of commercial applications, with the attractive control panels providing the Museum with a stylish, user-friendly interface for setting a variety of lighting scenes. If exhibits are moved or changed the system is easy to re-programme to meet the new requirements. At the heart of the Imagine system is the pre-assembled ESR racks for 12 or 24 channels, which offer a combination of system flexibility and ease-of-maintenance. Designed for use with interchangeable two-channel dimming control modules, the Imagine system allows the lighting designer or installer to easily build a suitable configuration for all types of commercial light dimming applications.
The development of a user-friendly lighting control system for the 33-acre Legoland site, with lighting of buildings and pathways controlled by a central server.
The first phase saw the Grafik 5000 system installed in each of the seven themed areas that make up Legoland. For each area, a high-performance data bus linked the Grafik 5000 systems with handheld programmers, dimming and switching panels, interfaces and the local wallstations, which were installed in each building.
In the second phase these seven Grafik 5000 systems were linked to 'Floorplan', a control software for complex systems and applications. All the systems were upgraded so they could be controlled by a central server over an Ethernet, allowing a clear overview of the status of zones, scenes and every single lighting source for the whole park at all times.
Phase three took place in August 2003 and involved upgrading the whole system to incorporate Lutron's new Grafik 7000 system. The advantages are threefold: firstly, the Grafik 7000 is reverse compatible with existing products allowing further upgrades to be easily employed; second is the extra features that the system holds - it is an entirely Ethernet based system, it can be operated from anywhere and it has multiple time clocks (especially important in theme parks where different shows and different seasons play a part in their operation); finally, the Grafik 7000 has more detail than its predecessor which is vitally important for all the different rides, areas and restaurants that Legoland has.
The Grafik 7000/Legoland project shows just how global a company Lutron is. The product was designed in Los Angeles but was then Germanised with local code and design functions.
To bring the ambitious design to life, the team used Light System Manager - Color Kinetics' next-generation control system that facilitates the management, authoring, and control of show effects that span multiple DMX universes, exceeding the limitations of today's lighting programming and networking protocols. They created a sequence of animations in Macromedia Flash, which were then easily imported to Light System Composer, the software component of Light System Manager. Light System Engine was used to store and play the customised light shows.
To complement the design with vivid wall washing effects, 11 ColorBlast¨ 12 units were installed to light the facade's upper and lower stories; 5 units between the ground and 3rd floors, and 6 units between the 10th and 12th floors. Effects were controlled by iPlayer 2.
The finished installation was a marvel, attracting onlookers with its holiday-themed show of light as artistic expression. Effects included colour-changing swirls, stripes, geometric shapes, random sparkle, and a rush of vivid blue climbing up the facade. More complex effects included an animated Santa Claus, complete with sack of toys, and a playful monkey. Try that with conventional light sources!
Perhaps most impressive, the entire project was conceptualised, installed, and displayed for just three weeks in celebration of Christmas and the New Year - proving that a grand-scale application of LED-based illumination can be achieved with ease.
Penn State's Department of Architectural Engineering has installed the first Internet-controllable lighting laboratory in the world, based on the digital addressable lighting interface (DALI). The DALI interface allows users from any PC and any location to control any lamp in this laboratory with a web browser; observe the effects with a web camera; and remotely monitor energy use and time-of-day use. Most recently, the control system was on display at Lightfair 2004 in Las Vegas. Visitors to Tridonic's booth were able to operate the lighting within the lab.
Philips Lightmaster ensures bright future for the Met Office
A Philips Lighting's scheme for the Met Office's new site in Exeter has combined energy efficient light sources with flexible control and aesthetics.
Helvar imagine a great lighting scheme at IWM
When the Imperial War Museum recently redesigned and upgraded their lighting control system they chose to specify Helvar - the company who supplied their original system. Following a lengthy design and installation process, the Imagine system now provides the Museum's main atrium and gallery areas with a state-of-the-art lighting control that helps create an enriched experience for visitors.
Lutron Grafik 7000 stars at Legoland Germany
In May 2002, the Lego Company opened the world's fourth Legoland theme park in Gnzburg, Bavaria. The lighting for the park's shops, restaurants and pathways was controlled by seven Lutron Electronic's Grafik 5000 systems. The processor panel of each Grafik system was linked to the Lutron "Floorplan" software by fibre-optic cables and thus could be centrally controlled by a server.
Color Kinetics manage control in Tokyo
Designed by Color Kinetics Japan, the project for the Yoshikawa Building in Tokyo called for 208 strands of iColor Flex SL, mounted in tracks, and installed behind an exterior glass wall - running vertically from the 3rd to the 10th floor. Each floor was lined with 26 strands spaced in 9" (230 mm) intervals, forming a grid against the facade, and remarkably totalling 10,000 individually controlled light nodes spanning 62 DMX universes.