IEC publishes new Editions of Parts 101, 102 and 103 of IEC 62386

December 13, 2022

IEC has published new Editions of three important Parts of IEC 62386, the international standard that defines the digital addressable lighting interface.

IEC, an international Standards Development Organization (SDO), has published the following:

• Edition 3.0 of “Part 101: General requirements – System components”
• Edition 3.0 of “Part 102: General requirements – Control gear”
• Edition 2.0 of “Part 103: General requirements – Control devices”

Reflecting the importance of this standard, commented versions (CMVs) have also been published for each of these Parts. CMVs are a new initiative by IEC that enable easy identification of changes compared to the previous editions. They also include comments from the experts who developed the standard – including Scott Wade, Technical & Certification Manager of the DALI Alliance – to explain the reasoning for the changes.

An IEC blog quotes Scott Wade: “The updated versions of these standards offer many new features for control gear and control devices, as well as backwards compatibility with the previous versions.”

The CMVs and all other Parts of the IEC 62386 series can be purchased from the IEC webstore.

DALI-2 certification

The changes made in the new Editions of Parts 101, 102 and 103 will not all appear immediately in the DALI-2 certification program, which is delivered by the DALI Alliance. DALI-2 certification is based on the IEC 62386 standard, but there are some small differences.

The interoperability promise of DALI-2 relies on comprehensive product testing, followed by independent verification of test results. Requirements and test specifications for DALI-2 are defined by the DALI Alliance. Some of the changes to Parts 101, 102 and 103 are already implemented in DALI-2, while some requirements are new and will be added to DALI-2 later.

Until then, DALI Alliance members that are working towards product certification should continue to use the version (edition/amendment) of each IEC 62386 Part that is listed in the “Allowed Parts of IEC 62386” document.

Another essential document for product developers is “Clarifications and Recommendations for IEC 62386.” This is an additional set of requirements that are necessary for DALI-2 certification. Both documents are available from the DALI Alliance member website. 

 

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Changes in the latest Editions of Parts 101, 102 and 103

The following information is provided by the IEC website:

Part 101: General requirements - System components

The significant technical changes with respect to the previous edition are:

• the scope has been updated;
• safety and earthing have been updated and extended;
• references have been updated;
• the use of bus-power and external-power has been clarified;
• polarity sensitivity for bus units including a bus power supply has been updated;
• frame sizes of 32 bits are no longer reserved.

Part 102: General requirements - Control gear

The significant technical changes with respect to the previous edition are;

• the scope has been updated;
• references have been updated;
• memory bank reading of multi-byte values has been added;
• memory bank 0 and common memory bank requirements have been updated;
• reserved memory banks have been updated;
• non-volatile memory (NVM) save time has been added, and SAVE PERSISTENT VARIABLES removed;
• version number has been updated;
• bus unit configuration has been added.

Part 103: General requirements - Control devices

The significant technical changes with respect to the previous edition are;

• the scope has been updated;
• quiescent mode has been updated;
• non-volatile memory (NVM) save time has been added, and SAVE PERSISTENT VARIABLES command removed;
• memory bank 0 has been modified, and common memory bank requirements have been added;
• IDENTIFY DEVICE has been updated;
• version number has been changed;
• bus unit configuration has been added; and
• instance types and configuration have been added.

 

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