Carrier "System Touch" HMI Screen

[JCIman]

I'm helping a friend out on this one. There is an office building with 7 or 8 tenants. Each space is fitted with a Carrier RTU (packaged controls), several Carrier OPN-VAVB3-02 VAV controllers, and a Carrier "System Touch" HMI.
It is all BACnet MSTP. Each tenant's space is on its own MSTP network. The building owner wants to tie everything together and have some kind of network supervisor so he has visibility to the whole system.
He's not too picky about what kind of supervisor is used. He doesn't like the Carrier rep.
The problem is that when it was installed, unique addresses were not used for each controller since they are all on their own networks. So the controllers need to be readdressed, which will obviously break some things.
The question is, how easy is it to setup those HMI's and relink them to the new addresses/BACnet ID's? I'm also wondering if there are communications from the RTU to the VAV's via peer to peer.

[MaxBurn]

Check to see if this is actually a system touch or is it a equipment touch. I don't know what the carrier names for those are, those are ALC names.

System touch = wired to the MS/TP port of the controller.

Equipment touch = wired to the Rnet port of the controller.

If they actually are System touches I think all you need to do is connect up all the RTU MS/TP buss with unique MAC and device instances, add the system touch to the buss and you will be able to go in/out of each RTU.

The VAV controllers are where you are really going to lose it, I'm not real solid on how those map to the RTU and if you start messing with addressing it's going to throw that off. But with work on relinking it all you should be able to work with all the RTUs and VAV's from one or several system touches.

I would think iVu would be a easy plug and play add on here, look for another carrier rep?

If going third party maybe leave it all separate, add a couple HVACR BACRouters and some BACnet/IP supervisor thing.

[Balibe]

Check to see if this is actually a system touch or is it a equipment touch. I don't know what the carrier names for those are, those are ALC names.

Carrier uses the same name for them. If they are stand-alone systems, it will need to be a System Touch for access, scheduling, etc.

The question is, how easy is it to setup those HMI's and relink them to the new addresses/BACnet ID's? I'm also wondering if there are communications from the RTU to the VAV's via peer to peer.

ID's are auto-generated once the address is changed and controller power cycled. There is peer to peer (linkage as Carrier calls it), the master vav coordinates with the other vav's and communicates information to the rtu. The touch screen is just for access unless they are using the built-in temp sensor for something.

If you are going to tie everything together and re-address, the master vav, remaining vav's and rtu will need to setup correctly and re-assigned to the new addresses for linkage to work correctly. You will need Field Assistant or an i-Vu front-end for this.

The touch screens will also need to be re-setup with the new address/ID changes, they are done at the display (no software needed). The vav's & rtu are scanned in and grouped for scheduling & access. If they don't want the tenants to have full access, they can be removed and everything moved to the new front-end. Hopefully they put in local adjustment on the vav sensors to give the tenants some control.

Agree with MaxBurn. A Carrier front-end will be ideal and probably cheaper. Every device should have a graphic in the controller, so once scanned to i-Vu, the front-end work is done for the device. Plus you get full access to the devices versus only what is available to third-party.

Instead of combining it all together and re-setting up everything, it is probably better to leave them independent and use routers to the new supervisor. With Carrier you would only need 4 routers as each one has two comm ports. If going third-party, just you the CC BASRT-B and bring everyting in over IP.

[JCIman]

Instead of combining it all together and re-setting up everything, it is probably better to leave them independent and use routers to the new supervisor. With Carrier you would only need 4 routers as each one has two comm ports. If going third-party, just you the CC BASRT-B and bring everyting in over IP.

I was thinking of routers, but wouldn’t the duplicate BACnet device instance numbers be an issue even coming through on different network numbers?

[JCIman]

Maybe the duplicate device instances wouldn’t be an issue as long as we are not routing directly between networks.

[amigo]

I think what he is saying is the supervisor sees/treats them as 7-8 different sites under one umbrella.

[MaxBurn]

I don't know what SOP is for these guys but there's a good chance if I was doing a building like this all the MAC's and ID's would be unique even if not connected. Have you actually run an inventory? You can do that from the system touch screens.

[JCIman]

I actually wired into every trunk and used BDT, and in fact they are not unique

[Cool breeze 38]

If this was my job I would put the XT-RB om Each xt-rb has 2 comm ports on them. So 1 per 2 tenants. I would then Put the I-VU on.
I would do it this way for a few reasons. you don't need to go through a tenants space to change mac address's. (rotary dials) You then also have an individual comm loop per tenant. So when meatball one messes up their comm wire while trying to be the new improved IT guy, the damaged comm doesn't take down the other tenants. The other systems will run as normal>

he doesn't like the carrier rep. Honestly. I don't like the Carrier reps half the time either. But that shouldn't alter a wise decision. Once you install the I-VU the controllers will be uploaded with the graphics. There is no time consuming work to do. Its just Poof its there.


The system touch that would be used if you didn't do the above. IMO suck. They work well but are in no way a comparison to the front end. Cost more then the router. If you have carrier controls expert pricing 2 system touches will be $2000 one xt-rb is 820. The ivu std is 3100. so the better way cost less also.

JCI id let him see a Carrier system live with view only privilege's if you like.

[JCIman]

Thanks for all the replies. I agree the I-Vu would be the best thing for the customer. All of the other solutions will be more costly and inferior.