Best of...LON

[joaoaom]

Hi all,


I work in controls for about 5 years. From the beginning until now I’ve used Bacnet devices/systems.

I’m realizing that the world isn’t only bacnet and that lon is also very well spread in the building automation industry.

What I would like to know is:

1) Some useful links for sites with good Lon information;
2) What system do you recommend for me/my company to work with (become a dealer) . By the way we are an European company (CE is a must!)

I also don’t resist to ask you, control gurus, what bacnet system do you think is the best….ALC, ALERTON, DELTA, RELIABLE, etc.

…And which do you consider the best, no matter what protocol is used.

Regards,
JM

[amigo]

What BACnet products are you using presently?

This will help (for me at least) in suggesting comparable product that is LON based.

[joaoaom]

Alerton

[sysint]

"1) Some useful links for sites with good Lon information;
2) What system do you recommend for me/my company to work with (become a dealer) . By the way we are an European company (CE is a must!)"

Links:
www.loytec.com
www.sysmik.de
www.lonmark.org
www.echelon.com
www.distech-controls.com
www.echelon.com
www.thermokon.de

Point 2: - With Lonworks you have very consistent device level interoperability with the ability of common networking tools between vendors so it isn't as necessary to single source a specific vendor.

In addition to the vendors above, I think TAC has some nice product and I'm always curious about kieback and peter.

[poochz]

Don't forget about:

http://www.engenuity.com/

the one stop shopping LON network....
I go there alot just to see the new stuff and what vendors are making.

Poochz

[nikko]

Don't forget about:

http://www.engenuity.com/

the one stop shopping LON network....
I go there alot just to see the new stuff and what vendors are making.

Poochz

Good point - and Engenuity is on the verge of getting even better with the new hire's they've brought on recently.

Nikko

[sysint]

.... the guy is from Europe.

www.plexus-technologies.com

[leaflying]

Opps, it should be http://www.plexus-technology.com/

.... the guy is from Europe.

www.plexus-technologies.com

[crab master]

"1)In addition to the vendors above, I think TAC has some nice product and I'm always curious about kieback and peter.

Sysint - what are you saying here? " Especially kieback and peter?"

joaoaom - I deal primarily with the TAC product - primarily the Vista product line which is there primary and maybe only LON line. All their equipment that I have dealt with is CE. I like the line but it is the only line that I have worked with primarily.

[simsd]

I gotta ask you guys a question. I've gone to the Enenuity site and I find their prices bruatally expensive. What's up with that?

[amigo]

Engenuity: you get price breaks as you buy quantity.
Their prices are not the cheapest and be careful of S&H fees.
Overall is a good place to see what is out there and buy things that may be harder to come by.

joa, I would agree that TAC is a good overall product and should give equal and/or better functionality than Alerton. What would be nice for you is TAC has both LON and BACnet lines, eventough I am not sure if Andover products have CE ratings or not.
I would also look at Siemens, for the longest time the had the line closed to small contractors but from what I hear (you need to verify) they are opening up their LON (extensive products) and BACnet lines, especially in Europe and Asia.

[joaoaom]

Sysint....I think the link you want to place is www.plexus-technology.com. But these guys are only software...

Siemens and TAC are already taken by other integrators within my territory...and yes is true....Siemens is opening to small contractors and system integrators.

[sysint]

Yes. Those are the guys.

They have their Altitude front end which is every bit as good as Tridium... actually, in regards to graphics it's better.

Plus, you have the LNS server and can use an IP852 NIC and get much more performance than any Tridium box can deliver on a Lonworks network.

They also have bacnet driver so it's a good choice product-wise, although technical support is not as good as Tridium.

[codewriter]

Where can one "touch and feel" this Altitude sys?
How did you compare the two to come up with this conclusion?

[sysint]

Altitude has a demo on their site you can get some ideas.

I like the way they do animations -- you can quickly setup "speed" and frames, or go back forth.

They also do a nice job with layering -which you can see on the demo site.

I've seen/messed with many Tridium demos and have installed some Plexus.

The bigger issue isn't presentation on the LON side --- it's the ability to use a NIC with SIGNIFICANTLY more throughput per second than Tridium can do..... unless they have changed recently.

[codewriter]

Can you provide a direct link, I must be blind because I cant find their demo.

[leaflying]

It's taking the whole right area of the page. http://195.112.26.38/altitude/altitude.aspx

[tlp261]

Whatever that link is for, it's not opening after several minutes. Looking at the Java coffee cup isn't too exciting.