looking for arcnet drivers for tracer summit v11

[dcrtx]

I have a Tracer Summit running on ver 11 with an older IBM P2 computer. It has ISA slot arcnet. I'm in the process of upgrading front end to an IBM P4 and of course it does not have ISA slots. I have purchased a PCI arcnet from card from Contemporary Controls. Contemporary Controls tell me that I need to install drivers from the Summit Software. How ever XP Pro has not located them and the files that Contemporary Controls says will work "CCSI_ARCNET.INF" and "COM20020.SYS" are not on the Tracer Summit V11 software. Any help on these drivers or other drivers that will work with Tracer Summit V11 and XP Pro would be Appreciated.

[smokies]

Is there a reason your not upgrading to ethernet. You have to replace the cabling- Arcnet coax is not capatible with ethernet.However CAT5 wiring is cheap and easy. The length limit for CAT5 is 330ft. How big is your site.How many BCUs Just seems this would be the time to upgrade everything.The ethernet card can be bought from Trane parts dept and real easy to install. Just a thought. Good Luck.I'll look around for your arcnet drivers.

[amigo]

As far as I know XP does not support Arcnet at all. Arcnet card is looking for Ndis component of windows to interact with computer hardware, after windows NT4 service pack6, windows dropped Ndis all together if I remember correctly.
I am recalling this from memory long long ago.
I don't think a solution will be easy if you want to stick with Arcnet.
Good luck.

[dcrtx]

I really would like to stay with the Acrnet. If I chose to change to ethernet I have been told that my BCUs would have to be replaced as they do not support ethernet. I am also told the drivers for the PCI Arcnet are to come from the summit software. I have left a message for Trane but have not heard any thing yet. I.m hoping that the drivers are on a newer version and that it will work with version 11. I'm not sure that the BCUs will support a higher version than 11. The system was put in with version 10 in 2000 and upgraded to ver 11 later that same year. The system has 2 BCUs , 46 PCMs and 1 UPCM currently running 98se and the Arcnet is for an ISA slot. I don't have a problem with it's operation it is just that the front end pc has been running continuously for five years and PCs dont last for ever. All the new PCs dont have ISA slots so I am changing to the PCI Arcnet which is rare. I'm not upgrading just trying to survive. Thanks for any help.

[ZeroCool]

If I remember right, you will not find anything that will work on arcnet on the xp platform for Summit. It is another lovely way that American Standard does not give backwards compatability to almost anything. You can purchase the ether cards pretty cheap but it gets kinda complicated cause you have to have a certain ver bcu and the chip has to be at a certain level. If you do a search on the commercial side there was a discussion about the upgrade procedure with card and chip numbers I believe. Or maybe a helpful Trane man might chime in? (qtip?)

[amigo]

If you really want to stick with Arcnet, then I suggest:
Upgrade computer hardware
Use PCI card that you have
Reinstall win98se

I do not have them, but I know Trane has Arcnet drivers for PCI cards but this will only work on win98.

I would also put some future plan in place to slowly convert to ethernet.
In my opinion, in one way or the other you will be forced to do it as time passes.

[txun]

I have seen one Summit unit connected via a Fieldserver media converter to a WIFI accesspoint - very handy and easy to configure since it is standard ethernet. The PC to Summit connection may be connected this way.

[amigo]

dc, if you are really stuck, one other option maybe to buy a protocol translator box, BACnet ethernet to BACnet Arcnet (with BNC connector). This gateway usually is transparent to the system. This way the PC can use an ethernet card, and the BCUs can remain with Arcnet cards.
these are not cheap (~1K - 2K) but they work.

One of the companies that make such a thing is:
http://www.cimetrics.com

And there are other companies.

[qtip]

One of the guys at the office just did the same thing. I will talk to him on Friday.

[tranewashed]

To get a arcnet driver for Win XP or 2000 you need a PCI arcnet card and Tracer summit version 12 with latest service pack to get arcnet driver. You can upgrade old BCUs to ethernet if the ROM chip on the BCU which would probably be a BMTS model is a version 4.0 or greater. The chip can still be ordered from trane for the older BCUs. Hopefully this helps.
PS. Ask about a free software upgrade to version 16 tracer summit.

[qtip]

Arcnet drivers for XP are located on Summit V16 disk.

[icswes]

Call your local Trane office, Trane is upgrading Summit from ver 11, 12, 13, 14, 15 to ver 16 for free.
They will try to charge you for installaton, but the software is a free upgrade. It was only a $100.00 upgrade to about three months ago, now its free. I have upgraded
several customers. The arcnet drivers are on the ver 16 disk. and it works. You can convert to ethernet real on older BCU's. BMTS. Their is a Boot rom chip you can get
from Trane, about twenty bucks. The trick is finding a ISA
ethernet card for the BCU. Trane wants about a hundred bucks for that card.

[amigo]

What do you know, Arcnet drivers for XP!
Learn something new everyday.
A question for Trane Corporate boys:
Do you ever wonder why your controls support division gets bigger and bigger with more headaches?
Oh..., I forgot "can't stop a Trane."

[qtip]

Originally posted by amigo
Do you ever wonder why your controls support division gets bigger and bigger with more headaches?


http://www.michiganjeepers.com/evefiles/graemlins/dunno.gif give us your opinion!

[amigo]

It is hard to give constructive ideas when you see the machine this far in.
But may be:
1. Stop your manufacturing plants from coming up with their controls ideas and BASD being forced to support all these products.
2. Sometimes, like people who use windows, you just have to use what is available instead reinventing the wheel. I am talking about your LON side, how much money have you sunk into LON API ? You should have stuck with LNS and pay the royalty. You are buying the FT-10 trans anyway.
How far and how much money did you dump into CEA-860 project?

Nice smilies though, be cool like my Corona Qtip !

[ZeroCool]

Wow, They came out with the drivers for the XP platform. If I learn something new, the day has not been a loss. Something tells me it has to do with the V16 solution.. free upgrades???, from the greediest, toilet bowl of a corp. like AMS ?? I think its like Tolkien said "All that is gold does not glitter." I can see several reasons not to cross that bridge yet.

[qtip]

Both points you bring up are beyond the control of most if not all of the "Trane guys" that post on this board, all R&D decisions are made at a differenrent level than us. We are the ones that have to deal with the products they produce and utilize them to the best of their abilities. As for the Trane product being "Crap" like a lot of people say around here, those to be nameless, I like it and do not have many problems with the devices as some make it sound.
Our LON ( Comm 5) devices are not a bad product and the protocol we use is very stable, I have jobs out there with over 2 miles of comm like and 80+ devices and have had no problems at all. Integrating other vendors has not been a problem either. As for being open to all configuration and points available, Sysint will probably chime in soon, I feel your pain of using "Trane" products, but with all the money spent on R&D why would we expose "ALL" points to other vendors, as with Bacnet protocol if you want points from a chiller there is a standard points list of about 15 items but many more possible. What other manufacturer out there give all the possible from their product? Do they not stay within a standard profile created by Lon? Is it true that Trane does lead the industry for have the most equipment out there that is capable of supporting Lon protocol?
Ok so on to the BCU, or boat anchor as some Say, I have debated this device many times and researched different options and come to the conclusion that believe it or not I like it. Yea it adds to the cost of a project but so does anything else used by other vendors to do the similar job. Thought it is possible to have a complete site operational with out one it does a good job for its purpose.

I just woke up so I am not all here but the questions above are honest Q's, not ment for bashing. As you can see I do not post much here but visit daily for information and to see what is going on else ware. I don't mind trying to help someone out with the Trane produts when I can, as I am not "Trane Washed" as you might think. I am also not as Opionated as other posters about the products that they choose to use. Thanks for the reply Amigo but as stated up top, it is out of our control.http://www.4wd.com/4wdforums/images/smilies/coffee.gif

[dcrtx]

Thanks for all the help.
The files that Contemporary Controls said would work "CCSI_ARCNET.INF" and "COM20020.SYS" I finally got and the card and xp accepted it. They probably came from ver 12. I'm still on 11 and summit is keeping the arcnet selection grayed out. My guess is that 11 is not going to work. One other problem might be that this new pc came with an ethernet card on the mother board which is active. We think we saw it some where in the Summit doc where you can not have both active. I'm going to reload summit after disabling the ethernet card and see if I can get summit to allow the arcnet selection. If that doesn't work up grade to 12 or 16. I let you know how it works out. We are getting close thanks again for the help.