red warrior
01-26-2010, 10:27 PM
Was working in a new account this week, a small elementary school, with Voyager RTU's, Varitrac CCP's and assorted VAV controllers. The equipment had been neglected for a while. Had some mechanical problems along with some scheduling and setpoint issues. The maintenance people had a 98 workstation with hyper term set up to access the system. The maintenance office is near the finance offices in the back of the building. About the time i hear a fax machine key up and start hand shaking, the maintenance people come running in screaming at me to disconnect. It turns out that the computer modem and a fax machine both share the same phone line. Later I discovered that the connection between the workstation and the Varitrac CCP in the same room is accomplished through a computer modem, a shared phone line with fax, and a control system modem on the other end. In other words you dial out on one phone line to connect to another phone line to reach a panel 10' away. I really could not believe that anyone would go to such length to overcomplicate something.
After the fax filled my screen with gibberish, I proceeded to try and reconnect. Two hours later I was ready to beat my head on the table and cry. I hate hyper term. I could not manage to reconnect. Would it be easier to come directly out of the serial port to the CCP? Why do I have so much trouble with reconnecting through the existing modem set up. Is there anyone that can explain how to do this in small easy to understand words that a frustrated, overworked, and slightly unstable service/control/tech could understand. Hyper term and Varitrac panels have always frustrated me. Train is not our line so I don't have access to manufacturer tech support.
After the fax filled my screen with gibberish, I proceeded to try and reconnect. Two hours later I was ready to beat my head on the table and cry. I hate hyper term. I could not manage to reconnect. Would it be easier to come directly out of the serial port to the CCP? Why do I have so much trouble with reconnecting through the existing modem set up. Is there anyone that can explain how to do this in small easy to understand words that a frustrated, overworked, and slightly unstable service/control/tech could understand. Hyper term and Varitrac panels have always frustrated me. Train is not our line so I don't have access to manufacturer tech support.