Reply to Thread

Ridiculous... dap- you have to call them. That's list pricing. Get logged in and let me know how it went. Or email me for the real story.

Sys, I agree with you on the Lon concept versus Carrier or Trane etc. but my undestanding was that you had to be a dealer to buy from Circon. Also, I did check out Enginuity and although I haven't called them I was quite suprised when they changed their 'pricing structure'. Tried to show a customer the economics of using Lon controls but it was right after they changed their published prices. He wasn't convinced. Told me that he could continue to work with BACNET and save big bucks over Lon prices. He has almost 100 small buildings on Ethernet that he would like a basic monitoring system in. Thinks its cheaper to continue with Andover to do the job. This is the same customer with the previous mentioned unit ventilator. It's a stand alone unit, no network.

ps. Just checked Engenuity. Price for NI 3 is $1500

[Edited by dapper on 04-13-2005 at 06:33 PM]

Circon Network Integrator. It's available to everyone. You don't have to be a dealer. Have you checked out Engenuity? You can buy hundreds of LON devices without being a dealer.

How do you buy Carrier? Don't you really go to the distributor? Same way you buy Honeywell? Honeywell is LON and you can us NI to setup/monitor Honeywell stuff.. (and others) By contrast, if you want to work with Carrier, you have to go to Carrier.

What's NI? I was told that the System Pilot is new and will communicate with all devices except those in the original series, 10 to 12 years old.
Although I think Lon is a great concept it is starting to look like you have to be a dealer to buy anything anymore. If that is the case, it is not really 'OPEN'.

I think NI is about $500.00 and you use it over and over again with all sorts of manufacturers devices.

Your CCN only pilot doesn't sound like a bargain anymore, especially when they come out with the next version. How many generations of VVT have they had? 5?

I can use NI to interact with Circon devices (and others) back over 10 years.

Sysint..... If it was Lon I would still have to buy LonMaker or some other software as well, correct?
At $300 the System Pilot is still a bargain.

HELP!

Hello,
I am a property manager for a 2 level office building (28,500 sq ft) in Calif. I have a tenant in a 4000 sq. ft top floor office connected to one thermostat and oneone 10 ton trane unit on the roof. The people on one side of the office are freezing while the others are hot and vice versa. I need to get them on at least two, preferably three different zones. There are three dampers and three thermostats in that office space, but everything is connected to one and no one knows if the others would work if hooked up, let alone communicate with one another.

Our HVAC technician has recommended we put the whole building on a computerized digital system, the Carrier CCN and begin with installing the zone sensors there first to start changing over the building little by little. Unfortunately, he's estimating that the whole 28,500 sq ft building that has app. 10 tenants total, would cost us $30,000 each floor at a total cost of $60,000!!! Eek... This is way out of our budget. So, for the time being, he said he'll put a "band aid" on this unit to make these people happy upstairs by using a residential Honeywell package (not compatible with any software) that would give that office three communicating zones at a total cost of $6400.00.

I would like to know if anyone knows of a cheaper "band aid" until we can do the whole building software package, or if there is a "band aid" like this Honeywell unit that has software compatibility, or if anyone knows a building software system that is less expensive and just as effective as the Carrier CCN?

Any advice would be much appreciated!
Thank you!


[Edited by esotericam on 04-10-2005 at 01:32 PM]

Originally posted by fat eddy
Sys,

It's a nice thought but if you aren't in Ohio I doubt that it would be something that could happen, we typicaly change 1 valves and actuator,2 damper actuators, the controller and the sensors,new stat with push button override, provide the sequence , a logic print and wiring diagram, it takes two man days in the field and four hours of engineering. To install and start-up. We normally charge 3,500 for it, could be less per unit if they are doing multiple units at one time, we might drop to 3,000 if they are doing around 10. Is this the same type of job you are talking about ?

[Edited by fat eddy on 04-02-2005 at 08:14 PM]

Money-talk should be in technical so here is hours...
12 hours to install. (single site)
2 hours for engineering (if not part of a project. Then it's less)
Actuators and valves typically belimo.

Bear in mind on new jobs sometimes we just connect a comm... although the OEM then gets the extra $$$ and not the mech.

.... and we have done work in Ohio. Columbus and Pickerington. 8.5 hour drive or 1 hour flight. Distinct possibility I'll be back this year for another project.

Columbus invented the chain restaurant. There are more chains per capita in Columbus than anywhere else.

Sys,

It's a nice thought but if you aren't in Ohio I doubt that it would be something that could happen, we typicaly change 1 valves and actuator,2 damper actuators, the controller and the sensors,new stat with push button override, provide the sequence , a logic print and wiring diagram, it takes two man days in the field and four hours of engineering. To install and start-up. We normally charge 3,500 for it, could be less per unit if they are doing multiple units at one time, we might drop to 3,000 if they are doing around 10. Is this the same type of job you are talking about ?

[Edited by fat eddy on 04-02-2005 at 08:14 PM]

Originally posted by fat eddy

Originally posted by sysint
OK hire us to do it. $2,600.00/each Sound good?

Post your hardware component numbers, and control sequence with points list for that unit and I might.

Sys, what brands do you do , DDC ?

SCC profile... Give me an email address.

You actually need both service tool and comfort View

Why would you need service tool? Comfortview does it all now. carrier isn't even supporting service tool any more.

Originally posted by sysint
OK hire us to do it. $2,600.00/each Sound good?

Post your hardware component numbers, and control sequence with points list for that unit and I might.

Sys, what brands do you do , DDC ?

... and it it was LON to begin with you wouldn't have had to make the call or buy the $300.00 tool that only will work on a CCN system.

You could have connected anywhere on the network with any LNS access device.

Plus, the next set of U-vents could have been competively bid out.

OK hire us to do it. $2,600.00/each Sound good?

I've done several recontrols on Unitvents and the bill never came to less than 3,000.00, I don't see how you could do it for anything less than that. The ones I did were typically hot water face an bypass with econ and dx,

For those that are interested, we contacted a Carrier service manager that came to the site and changed the setpionts for us. He also demonstrated a 'new' tool called a System Pilot that can be wall mounted or hand held and can be connected anywhere on the network. If you know the device addresses you can access all the points in each device with the keypad and LCD screen. You can even access and change settings in the stats.

Its not very fancy but quite effective and at $300+ its a lot cheaper than buying the software packages. The device is system powered with the newer CCN controllers but you need a 24v supply to use with older controllers.

Maybe you should take a look at some plugins.

but how are you boing to drive the ecm motor? it uses a pulse width modulation signal for speed controll.

sysint,

absolutely right on. carrier has been pretty useless over the years when it comes to their "controls". why spend all that $$$ when you can do it for way less, and better (read "open"), with what's out there today.

Buy a 200 dollar ASC LON controller. Circon can handle the floating point and probably the stupid sensors also.

Why buy some overblown software at a ridiculous price?
Why buy the competitors product if it can't work?

Buy something flexible. Even if you change out the sensors, who cares? They are really cheap.

It cost you more that 200 bucks to talk about it.