OPC to BACnet/IP

[integrator]

Just some info

We had a project to read OPC data from a Hydro Monitoring system to our BACnet BMS system.

We tried several software packages and found the SCADA Engine a very good product to get OPC data and convert to BACnet/IP. The cost is reasonable.

[crab master]

So what products did you try?

[integrator]

http://www.scadaengine.com

[crab master]

Just some info
We tried several software packages and found the SCADA Engine a very good product to get OPC data and convert to BACnet/IP.

I get you used SCADA Engine but you said you tried other software packages and made it sound like they failed, but didn't give details. This makes you sound like a SCADA Engine salesman/rep.

It'd be about like me saying - I drove several vehicles and found brand x to be a very good product for a reasonable price. (Well I just drove brand x, and only looked at brand y).

Don't get me wrong, I appreciated hearing you had a good experience with SCADA engine, I just want the rest of the story.

[hybridtheory]

I agree with crab master. It would be nice to know who else you tried. We have a few jobs coming up that may require us to get OPC to BACnet. I hear good things about Kepware and Matrikon relative to their OPC servers (they're the two main players I always hear about relative to OPC Servers).

[integrator]

We tried Matrikon.

THe software is more flexible and more capibilites, but has it drawbacks. The software is build in modules. First you need to purchase the OPC module, and then the other side. In our case it was BACnet/IP.

The downside, is that the module BACnet/IP does not create the BACnet object. What you need to do, is in the BMS system, create AV or BV points. Then the Matrikon BACnet/IP module scans the BACnet devices and reads in these objects.

The Matrikon OPC module, scans the OPC client and gives you the avaible OPC objects.

In the Matrikon OPC Manager module, you create what they call a tag. Then you browse the OPC module and bind the OPC object as the input. Then within the same tag, you browse the BACnet/IP Object as the output.

How the OPC object passes data to the BACnet/IP.

The problem we had, was that all points are created manually, and the BACnet/IP module didn't work all the time.


The SCADAEngine, was simple and we had it working in 10 mintues. First you create a new engine, point to the OPC client and it automatically reads and creats all the OPC objects -> than creates the BACnet/IP objects.

Read in the BACnet/IP objects into the BMS system and that's it - very easy.

I didn't know about Kepware, and might give that a shot too.


From what we can see - we only needed to read data from teh OPC and send it to the BACnet/IP object. The ScadaEngine did what we needed very simple and at 1\4 of the cost.

[joey791]

I agree with crab master. It would be nice to know who else you tried. We have a few jobs coming up that may require us to get OPC to BACnet. I hear good things about Kepware and Matrikon relative to their OPC servers (they're the two main players I always hear about relative to OPC Servers).


I've never used it personally but I know alot of people that swear by Kepware.

[crab master]

Thanks for the update. I haven't used Matrikon OPC on BACNET, but I've used it for Powerlogic data and you just browse to the points you want, no building modules, unless you want to, i.e. you don't like the naming convention whomever built in powerlogic then you can build your own modules and then associate the points and have them output with the name you want.

As for Kepware I've also known others that have used it with success. I've seen it used but never really used it myself. Recently a Bacnet lighting integration and they ended up using Kepware to bring the points in and numerous modbus integrations using Kepware.

[numandina]

I have downloaded the evaluation version of SCADA Engine and it looks impressive except for one big problem - I can't add OPC tags to all the properties of an object.
Granted, it shows in the manual a check box that allows you to add an OPC tag to any of the desired properties, but when I run the program this check box is no where to be seen.

To me, it seems as if the manual is misleading to the product's true abilities, a belief which was boosted by the support team's lack of response to my e-mails.

[crab master]

You might check the LINX out - http://www.loytec.com/americas/index.php?option=com_content&task=blogcategory&id=2&Itemid=17

According to the documentation the tags are auto generated and then to add to it you just have another device on the network vs. a PC and software. Wish I could say I've used it, but I cannot, yet......

[eyeLON]

I've used Loytec's LINX, Lon version. Points are served up as OPC tags parsed by their configurator plugin (free). Tags are configured as static, dynamic or polled nv's.

The BacNet controller looks to be setup the same way.

[381engineer]

I've been using the LINX lon version also and they are very a flexible device. paired with the L-WEB software (Free) you can put together some pretty neat GUI's in short order. They also just recently released new firmware which increased the tag count from 1000 to 2000.

[numandina]

After some communication with the support (Chris Gurtler), our problem with SCADA Engine has been solved. It is now close to being one of our products for future projects.