Jace 700 with large lon network

[kempkerr]

I have a job with 200 van boxes and 6 trane intellipaks. I am planning to use a tridium jace 700 with Lon spyders for the 200 boxes. This will make for a larger Lon system than I am used to working with. My question is should I be looking at Lon over ip for the speed or can I just use the two Lon cards in the jace and routers? If I use the Lon cards should I use the routers as repeaters or use them as routers using the router manager? If I use them as routers am I limited to 128 nodes per Lon card?

[381engineer]

I thought it was no more than 64 nodes on an FT10, depending on how many variables 64 may be too many. Not sure how that changes when using AX but you better do your homework.

[kempkerr]

There is a limit of 64 per lon segment with a repeater you can get 128(less 1 for the local lon device) per Lon card. I am not sure how it works if I where to install a 4 segment router.

[dapper]

200+ devices seems like an awful lot for a 7. My distributor recommends a limit of 100 on a Jace7. I'm interested in hearing how that works out for you. As a side note, my manufacturer also states that a VAV controller is the most point intensive controller in their line.

[kempkerr]

I have a couple jobs where I have about 100 VAV spyders running on Jace 600's with on lone card and a router configured as a repeater. They are working great, the 700 has way more memory and a much faster processor. Does the jace have a limit of 127 nodes and is that per lon card?
Does a FT-10 router change that number?
Is there a limit if you use lon/ip?

[lwarren]

I am doing a job right now that will have 155 Lon devices on one Jace 700 with a Loytec LIP that has four Lon ports. 95% of these controllers will be Spyders. I have already bench tested the Spyder Tool with the Jace and Loytec router and was able to download a controller.

I did a job about a year ago with about 80 Spyders into a Jace 600 on one Lon segment and it has had no problems. CPU runs about 25%, but it is only polling every 30 seconds.

If you go with the two Lon cards in the Jace any bindings you do between the two networks will not be peer to peer, they will have to go through the Jace so keep that in mind.

It certainly is good practice to follow the recomendations and guidlines for a Lon network in regards to the node count per segment. That being said I have a site that has 110 Lon devices on a Jace 600 without a router that has been working without problems so far. This was not by design, but when we went to add the router we had problems and could not get it to work. This site was a very far away so we pulled it out until we could go back up and get it going.

I am not recommending anything I have stated, just pointing out how robust the Lon network is.

[digo]

One JACE-7 is cheaper than two JACE-6.
As pointed out in a previous thread, by using a single JACE-7 you are limited to two option cards, as opposed to 4 using two JACE6s.

Although one could argue that the processing power of two JACE-6s is greater than a single JACE-7 (if simply looking at raw clock speed of 524MHz vs. 667MHz) the main issue to consider is that the JACE-7 has 4 to 8 times the amount of heap.

JACE 6 - 48 or 96MB of heap
JACE 7 - 192 or 384Mb of heap

For that reason, I'd go the LonIp route.
The LIP-3333ECTB from Loytec will give you 4 FT-10 channels.

[tuncos]

For that reason, I'd go the LonIp route.
The LIP-3333ECTB from Loytec will give you 4 FT-10 channels.

How do you connect the LIP to the T-Box? Through the second LAN port?

[digo]

How do you connect the LIP to the T-Box? Through the second LAN port?

That's one way to keep that traffic isolated, similar to how you go about BACnet/IP, or any other IP based driver. A switch could be used. You can bind the LonIp driver to either adapter. If you do plug it directly to the secondary port, you may lose the ability to access the web-ui on the loytec router. It all depends on what you need to access after the job is installed.

[tuncos]

That's one way to keep that traffic isolated, similar to how you go about BACnet/IP, or any other IP based driver. A switch could be used. You can bind the LonIp driver to either adapter. If you do plug it directly to the secondary port, you may lose the ability to access the web-ui on the loytec router. It all depends on what you need to access after the job is installed.

Thanks for the info. I always wondered what that new DR-LON-IP-AX driver was for. Not that I've needed 4 ports, but I'm sure that day will come before I know it.

Thanks again.

[kempkerr]

After a lot of research I have decided to use the loytec LIP-3333ECTB as Digo sugested. I am strugling to find instruction on proper setup of the Lon/Ip for the Jace. If anyone has tips on the loytec router that would also be appreciated.

[lwarren]

Send me an email and I will send you a step by step document I put together on how to configure this.

[tuncos]

Send me an email and I will send you a step by step document I put together on how to configure this.

What's the benefit of using IP based LON? Do you use them to get a LON bus far from the JACE, and then use the building's network to haul all the data?

Thanks

[lwarren]

Mainly it provides a better backbone when you have multiple segments on.

[AtticusFinch]

What's the benefit of using IP based LON? Do you use them to get a LON bus far from the JACE, and then use the building's network to haul all the data?Thanks

The thread starter is utilising a multi-port router LON/IP. This means very high throughput to a single destination directly routed. So, you can go over the building network or through a WAN across the globe.

[lwarren]

After a lot of research I have decided to use the loytec LIP-3333ECTB as Digo sugested. I am strugling to find instruction on proper setup of the Lon/Ip for the Jace. If anyone has tips on the loytec router that would also be appreciated.

You got mail.

[kempkerr]

I got back in town today and was exited to find my loytec LIP-3333ECTB had arrived. The Jace 700 is not here yet so I tried to set it up running the station on my PC. The instructions form Lane where excellent however the router would not register the the ip address of my PC. I checked the license manager the workbench has a license file for Lon/ip. I made sure the firewall was shut off on my PC, is there a reason this will not work when running the station on a PC?
I left the dip switches set to 709 router I assume this is correct and I should not set it for smart server?

[kempkerr]

After restarting the platform the router was able to register with the station. I was than able to discover new devices and commision them but was unable to download to anything. I set the dip switches on the router to "smart switch" and everything seems to be operational. I am not really sure how the smart switch setting will effect me if at all but it seems to be working now.

[lwarren]

I don't think the jace automatically updates the router tables. Restarting the station will do it, or you can do it manually.

It should work fine in the configured router mode, as that is how I bench tested mine. Also, I think this is the preferred mode when there is large amounts of traffic on the IP side.

[kempkerr]

When in the configured router mode I was able to discover and commision both Honeywell spyders and XL10 products but all downloads failed. I tried everything I could think of but could not get anything to download until I set the router to smart switch. I would like to get it to work using the router mode but dont now what else to try. If it matters I intend to connect the router to the secondary ethernet port on the jace 700 so all traffic on that cable will be Lon traffic.