« July 2009 | Main | September 2008 »
Monday, June 01, 2009
How BACnet Tools Can Help You
Installing BACnet devices can be challenging for a number of reasons. You may be dealing with BACnet/IP, BACnet Ethernet, BACnet MS/TP, BACnet over ARCNET, or a mix of protocols. You might have to cope with repeaters, switches or routers.
Regardless of the complexity of your installation, a BACnet tool can greatly assist you. Although many tools are available over a wide price range, you may not need the fancy options of the expensive tools. You will at least want a tool that will discover BACnet devices (wherever they may be on their networks) and their properties.
A modestly priced choice (sample shown above) is the Windows®-based "BACnet Quick Test" from PolarSoft. It reports Device Instances, Vendor IDs, BACnet objects and associated properties. It confirms that devices are communicating on their networks and allows you to read and write object properties. It works with BACnet Ethernet, ARCNET, BACnet/IP and BACnet MS/TP.
Sometimes it is great help to just know that devices are accessible. A simple "BACnet Discovery Tool" is available for free from Contemporary Controls. Just point your browser to: