New leafs on an old tree

EEMS

2010-02-21T13:21:00.004-05:00

used in BOA project
http://www.prophetsuite.com/
http://www.activelogix.com/ (by Ex Tridium developer)

From Excel to MySql:
1. Export your data from Excel to a flat.csv file.
2. Put that flat.csv in C:\ (just for convenience)
3. Launch mysql command or use MySQL Quer Browser:
LOAD DATA LOCAL INFILE 'C:\\flat.csv' INTO TABLE tblTest FIELDS TERMINATED BY ','
ENCLOSED BY '"' LINES TERMINATED BY '\n'
(field1, field2)

If you have an extra character after the field, use this:
LINES TERMINATED BY '\r\n'

If you don't want to have the column names imported, open the .csv file with NOTEPAD and delete them or use IGNORE ROW in the SQL

Alternative steps:
1. create a ODBC connection to the destination MySQL database.
2. Open MS Access and create a new access database.
3. Import the excel data creating a new table.
4. Export the new table just created selecting "Database ODBC()" from file Type list.
5. Select the ODBC connection related to the destination MySQL database

http://www.straxx.com/excel/password.html

2009-04-19T14:06:00.000-05:00

Single enumeration

Carrier R2 driver

2008-01-27T17:17:00.001-05:00

33CNDRVCCN $2500

Game Theroy

2007-10-03T22:45:00.000-05:00

Game Theroy

The Palm Islands and The World Islands

2007-09-22T13:54:00.000-05:00

View Larger Map

Besides this, the World Islands is opening.

Data Visualization

2007-09-22T10:04:00.000-05:00

This example shows how powerful it will be if you have all the data together and analysis them.

One of the summarizing comments from Youtube:
There are no third world countries.
The animations make it easy to understand correlations between variables.
Averages hide (often) huge differences within a statistical population.
The data is spread across multiple systems and need to be linked and searchable.

More info can be found at here

Controller programming library 2

2007-08-20T21:13:00.001-05:00

How do we differentiate controller A to B? I/O, point assignment and sequence.

If we have a master I/O list for all controllers, it's easy to figure out the difference between them by putting them side by side.

I would like to have the software cover the difference of point assignment for the programmers as long as they are in one controller. As I mentioned before, the logic layer is above the physical point assignment and it won't be affected by the order of I/O or pseudo points in a controller.

Now, here comes sequence. In TXT library, I setup modules that match the sequence blocks on the drawing. And I setup CID that represent the selected sequences in each controller. While that works pretty well, it may not fit all real applications.

Firstly, one controller may have more than 1 units. So CID must be arranged per unit.

Secondly, there are always new sequences that were not included in the library. So the library has to be updated.

AX domain-wide authentication

2007-08-20T21:00:00.000-05:00

a. Add a String slot to the WebService and name it cookieDomain.
b. Enter the domain name in the field.
c. When domain name is used the cookie will log you on with the same
logon of the first station. If you do not have the stations registered in your
DNS Server you can workaround by putting the host in the host file
(Platform/TCP/IP Configuration).
i. For example:
cookieDomain = tridium.com
host file:
jace1.tridium.com
jace2.tridium.com
jace3.tridium.com

192.168.1.100:82/ord?station:|slot:/Drivers/LonNetwork/VAV_001

Controller programming library

2007-08-20T16:23:00.000-05:00

How to easily figure out the difference between 2 controller programming? Or more?

By point table? CVAHU02a to CVAHU01b, +FrzAlm +OaFlowSig +RaCO2 +RmRh
Following common sense, I know FrzAlm will stop fan in emergency. I don't know if those 3 additional AI are for monitoring only or acutually bring in more sequence.

By CID? +33(CO2 control) +34(outside air flow measurement and control)
Combining point table, I get a rough idea of what's the differece. But there's more.

Inputs, outputs, AV and BV assignments. I can ignore this in TXT library, since the logic layer is abstract and points are identified by their name, not the physical assignment. But in GRA library, I lose the control and the tool does not separate them. When I move programs from CVAHU01b to CVAHU02a, points are associated with their ID, not name. Very ugly! I have to manually go through each point to make sure logics are not connected to wrong points due to assignment changes.

The differences are always I/O, assignement and sequence. But the above process only applies to those controllers in the library. In real projects, things are more complicated. Normally, they don't have CID. (CID reminds me of how I differtiate controllers when I programmed them and they came from sequences.)

I have to identify them on HW drawings, in sequences. And they were checked by HW designer but this very simple result was left outside of the drawings. It's too bad that one can not pass all the useful information to downstreams.

That's why we need a revolution of the design process. Some of the key elements helping efficient engineering have to be identified and recorded at the very beginning of the job.

Great success begins at the beginning!

Computer tools

2007-08-11T10:33:00.000-05:00

VundoFix.exe
superantispyware
winpfind3u.exe
Comodo Firewall

My Tridium R2 tools 1

2007-08-04T22:46:00.000-05:00

I thought about this over a year, and finally upgraded my tools of importing NVs from Excel 50/500 controllers and converting them to program objects.

There are 2 ways, from CARE printout or from LonSchemaManager of Dynamic device. They are separate exe files now. Maybe in next upgrade, I'll combine them together.

The improvements are:
1) Before LonSchemaManager, I was using web property page of each Dynamic device, which requires additional webUI, live station and Excel as a temporary media. LonSchemaManager is much easier to get, even from a offline station.

There was an even earlier version, which requires a man-made Excel spreadsheet. The Excel spreadsheet was a part of the turnover documents from the CARE guy. But I didn't like it. Firstly, it costs more CARE guy's time and sometimes he just simply cannot provide it. Secondly, it may not reflect the true settings in CARE, since it's a manual process, and any human mistake may happen.

2) The software now shows an editable table of all NVs instead of directly generating codes in text windows and leaving no interface for human reviewing and editing. Single or multiple continuous NVs can be manually deleted. It's sorted by NV names. For further orgnizing, these NVs can be copied to and pasted from Excel.

3) The CARE version now supports automatically removing bound NVs from the NV list, which saves a lot of my manual filtering time.

4) Generally, the LonSchemaManager version should support all 3rd party Lon controllers. But I don't have enough time to review the program object code. In next upgrade, if possible, I would like to have a configurable code template to make this tool more generic and flexible.

Start/stop R2 station without admin tool

2007-07-25T22:16:00.000-05:00

It is said that station start/stop can be performed through PHP code. Just opened a socket, wrote a simple HTTP request.It's something about "plat stopstation -?" in the HTTP part. I need to check this out.

Every dog has its shining moment

2007-07-21T19:33:00.000-05:00

JAVA test of port 9100

2007-07-21T13:07:00.000-05:00

Since I don't know much about JAVA socket programming, I have to google similar codes and try to simplify them.

try
{　　　　　
Socket socket=new Socket("192.168.1.100",9100);
String line;
PrintWriter os=new PrintWriter(socket.getOutputStream());

line=x get this from a String input x;
os.println(line);
os.flush();
System.out.println("Alarm:"+line);
os.close();
socket.close();
}
catch(Exception e)
{
System.out.println("Error:"+e);
}

Alarm service and BAlarmRecepient are a little complicate to me now. I think I will try BStatusString first. This is hard to go further without offical support or commercial stimulation.

By the way, I accidentally found this interesting BQL:
alarm:bql:select * from openAlarms

Alarm printing without a PC

2007-07-21T10:47:00.000-05:00

I used to believe that in order to print something, you need to install a printer driver on a OS, Even for a network printer. There are some walk-throughs on the Internet showing how to configure a direct printing port.

I've searching for a common protocol over TCP/IP that can make a printer print something. And the answer is YES, which means you don't have to install a printer driver and just write a common tool that hopefully works on most of the network printers.

This makes it possible to have a JACE controller send out alarm message directly to a network printer. Among all options, HP port 9100 (RAW, AppSocket, JetDriver ...) seems to be the simplest. However, there is no standard specification of this protocol. It has to be tested on each target model.

Here is a useful link:
http://www.irongeek.com/i.php?page=security/networkprinterhacking

Control system alternative interface

2007-07-15T10:15:00.000-05:00

This is kind of go back to old days. Low end customers need some low cost simple interface to show them important messages, such as critical alarms.

Solustion 1 - Buzzer
More and more controller support UO, which, in binary mode, provides 12Vdc output when it's activated. Mini 12VDC Electric Buzzer from Radioshack has been successfully used in a project.
http://www.radioshack.com/product/index.jsp?productId=2102817&cp=2032058.2032230.2032266&allCount=19&fbn=Type%2FBuzzer&f=PAD%2FProduct+Type%2FBuzzer&fbc=1&parentPage=family

Solution 2 - big LED display system
My current selection is www.adaptivedisplays.com, simply because it provides the protocol details. I need to spend some time on the drive development and test.

Solution 3 - small Serial LCD
My current selection is melabs Serial LCD (SLCD). Yeah, it provides protocol too.

my perfect control system 1

2007-06-09T23:24:00.000-05:00

Normally, the design of a control system is based on engineering drawings and specifications of the mechical/electrical system. From these, we extract Level 1 information, most of which are independent to the hardware of the control system (i.e. no size and selection of valves, damper actuators, sensors etc.). Level 1 information is considered as the core information of a control system. It reveals the nature of the system.

That brings up the first question. What's the best format to record and present Level 1 information? Often, designer uses control system hardware drawing to present it. But that's not a good way. since it contains much more than Level 1. The importance of Level 1 is dilluted in a sea of information. The best presentation of Level 1 should easily have a designer capture the nature of the system in a couple of minutes.

Level 1 (core):
1, A plant list that summarize all equipment and plants under control.

This provides all designers and managers a big picture of what the system is. And from this, the index of hardware drawings and the navigation menu of graphics are easily created.

Moreover, the plant list is useful for all kinds of engineering hour and material cost analysis at marco level.

2, A point list arranged by controllers

This is the only item that is hardware related. But we only need to know how many of each type of points each controller can handle. Since I try to keep the design system as much hardware independent as possible, the rule of controller's point capability should be configurable.

Is there a similar hardware drawing can be followed/reused?

When creating graphics, one needs to know things such as where all the exhaust fans are?

3, Control sequence

The control sequence is not just simply copy and paste from mechnical drawings or specifications. It should be the decided sequence that will programmed in the selected controllers.

What are the software subroutines should be used? Is there a similar controller program that I can follow/reuse? What exactly are the differences? How to change it to satisfy the current need. (Search and comparison)

What are the most common used subroutines? (Application library optimization)

Home Automation

2006-12-19T00:13:00.000-05:00

I knew nothing about home automation and decided to take a look in this holiday. And I will update to this post little by little.

protocal: x10 (http://www.smarthome.com/about_x10.html)

EBI EBI

2006-10-25T15:07:00.000-05:00

After its installation, the computer name can not be changed? the engineer units in EBI won't update with the measurement system changes?

CARE5 task list

2006-08-13T21:54:00.000-05:00

-Multiple techs program/commission
-Break XL50/500 controller's SNVT limitation

Tridium AX Bug Catching Log - BQL

2006-08-04T23:14:00.000-05:00

Some BQL querys which work fine in Workbench can not suvive in the browser enviroment. And they all come with the character '.

For example:
select parent.displayName as 'Name',out.value as 'counts' from kitControl:Counter where parent.displayName like 'GroupA%'

'Name', 'counts' and 'GroupA%' are not allowed.

------- BCL, not BQL

My Google search has been hijacked

2006-06-23T17:08:00.000-05:00

Recently, I frequently found myself was taken to strange web sites after clicking the search results from Google. I used to manually remove some obvious spywares, but this one took me a lot more time to figure out.

First thing I noticed is that the IE status bar shows the link has been redirected to 85.255.114.114, and the php scripts there bring me further the hijack trip. I checked registry and used hijackthis tool from Merjin (It used to be Merjin.org, but it looks like recently this address has been taken over by someone else.) to remove any items with 85.255.114.114. But the problem still exists. Then I decided to change and save the perferences setting of my Google search and hoped that change of setting will get rid of this hijack. The preference link is just at the right of the searching text box. It DID work at first, which is odd to the-current-me since I now know what causes this problem. Unfortunately, the problem came back after a while.

I used different key words to search the cure online and finally find a useful tool. It's called F-Secure BlackLight. You can download it here. Basically, a software technology called Rootkit hides the spywars and make them invisible to the regular anti-spyware software and manual checking. F-Secure BlackLight can find them and put them under the spot.

With it, I found a couple of evil exe files. They are csbwy.exe, dmhti.exe, filesafer23.exe and howiper.exe. The tool can rename the found files and bring the peace back to my Google searching. If you have the same issue. Try it! And note there is a file called wbemtest.exe on the list. That's a windows system file. Don't rename that one. Good luck!

Distech FCU controller in Tridium

2006-02-22T21:27:00.000-05:00

Tridium Niagara version: r2.301.515
Lonworks Jar file version: lonworks-2.301.515f.v1
Distech Jar file version: lonDistech10-2.301.515a.v1/ lonDistech-2.305.515q.v1/ lonDistechWizards-2.304.515.v106

I like Distech Free programmable controller. It's very flexible in terms of working with Tridium, although it can only be programmed in a LNS plug-in. This is the first time I play with its FCU Lonmark controller and program it in Tridium.

Distech provides a wizard for the user to config the fan coil Lonmark controller. The first page allows you to choose the measurement system, "metric" or "Imperial". It gives some people convenience as well as an annoying bug.

It's about the temperature. Besides "metric" or "Imperial", user can choose "fahrenheit" or "celsius" in the properties of Lonworks service. And it looks like when "fahrenheit" + "Imperial", the temperature reading is 32F lower than the actual measurement. This 32F will be put in "offset" to make a temperature input work.

The other issue occurs when a typical controller shadow object is duplicated. The new shadow object will not inherit all the original configurations. The SNVT type of all hardware inputs will ignore all the changes and keep in SNVT_TEMP_F (It's a changable NVO), even when these NVOs are linked to other objecgts. So, you will not be happy if there are 100 controllers to be duplicated.

Distech Jar files had a recent upgrade (lonDistech10-2.301.515a.v1/ lonDistech-2.305.515s.v1/ lonDistechWizards-2.304.515.v110). And I have not tested to see if these bugs are fixed.

What's happening 01/21/2006

2006-01-21T14:45:00.000-05:00

Building Automation: HP And Cisco Sign In
Deep lake water cooling
Big Chill - An ambitious new project uses lake water to cool off city slickers
Future PC's

AHR EXPO opens next Monday

2006-01-19T23:05:00.000-05:00

The web site home page has a script busy loading and changing banners. I wonder how much every blink earns.

Booth #3532 is shared by 12 Bacnet venders. And they will connect and integrate each other's controllers into their own front-ends over Bacnet/IP. Similar thing has been done in Bacnet Conference and Expo 2005.

I can't make it. My plan is to check the exhibitor list and product locator, and have fun in a hard way.

Invensys Building Systems to go franchise

2006-01-15T21:29:00.000-05:00

The title of this news is about expanding, but the story is telling the shrinking.

With a network of Independent Field Offices, IBS is cutting its project delivery force and put the limited resource on R&D(?) and manufacturing. But I am still questioning about the loyralty of the "Independent Field Offices", which are actually dealers. I see more and more dealers adopt "best of breed"method, i.e., to give up the exclusive dealership and mix controllers from different manufacturers, based on the controller prices and engineering costs, in projects.

huMan to Machine & Machine to Machine

2006-01-06T22:14:00.000-05:00

The key to Tridium's growth is "anything to internet". Followed that, Echelon came up with iLon and Bacnet brought out Bacnet/IP.

Tridium's main goal is M2M market, which furthers the above idea. People predict that in the future, there will be more machine to machine communication than human to machine on networks including Internet. And that's why Tridium joined Honeywell. Honeywell has a deep pocket to support Tridium's ambition.

However, M2M is a little far away from BA industry. And I think the distance in between is the human to machine interface. With more and more devices support web interface. The operators should not be locked at the PC. Using generic wireless web-supported personal electronics such as PDA, cell phone and more fancy stuffs like all-in-1-card and e-paper, the BA system can be accessed anywhere in the building. I'll call these as pervasive interfaces.

With pervasive interfaces, M2M sets the foothold in BA systems. Site devices can send real time and historical data to remote servers through M2M technology. We don't need PC on site for system persentation and historical data storage anymore. Operators log on the system provider's portal web server and check the building conditions. The service provider maintains the system at back stage. The BA system can be accessed anywhere even thoudsands miles away from the building.

I'll explorer more of this in latter posts.

Schneider and TAC

2006-01-03T00:16:00.000-05:00

A lot of BA acquistions and mergers happened in last 2 years.

Other than the cases I mentioned previously, Schneider Electric has been played actively. After Schneider gobbled up TAC in 2003 and Andover Controls in 2004, the new TAC formed in April, 2005, with estimated 2004 revenes of 0.7B.

Along with some lightweight acquisitions in consulting engineering and security/fire businesses, TAC took over almost all the building automation business of Invensys in Europe and Middle East in June, 2005. By the way, Invensys is a company in controls and automation industry who suffered a lot from its acquistion & merger failures. Here are some details.

Another notable Schneider's acquistion is Canadian based company Power Measurement (not throught TAC) in April, 2005.

Here comes the new year

2006-01-01T01:38:00.000-05:00

Steve Jobs asked a question to John Sculley, "Do you want to sell sugar water for the rest of your life, or do you wnat to change the world?" Although, over years, this may have became a cliche because Apple guys used it again and again to the people they want. But it is still powerful if you ask yourself once a year.... in the first 3 years?

thoughts from real projects

2005-12-30T00:40:00.000-05:00

The minimum cost of the integration defines the broadness of the integration market. If the devices to be integrated are less valuable than the cost of the integration, people may not want to integrate them. If the cost of the integration is more than the cost of replacing new devices with popular protocols, the integration will not happen.

Smart fridge and food management

2005-12-28T23:44:00.000-05:00

I used to buy a lot of thing, put them in the fridge and forget to eat. They ended up at garbage bags. Because once they are in the fridge, I easily lose the awareness of their existence. Everytime I open the frige door, I always pick the things first into my eyes, which are probobally from my latest purchase.

I wish there is a display on the fridge showing me a list where the earliest or nearest to the expire date ones are on the top. It could be a little program in the PC, but again I will forget to open it, which make the program worthless. It must be something on the fridge.

The input method is the hardest part. If I type too much, this program may be abandoned. The easier the input is, the more useful the program will be. The options I can come up are barcode scanning (This way, I should have the same database as the one used by supermaket or setup every new barcode and reuse. Or, web serves?),receipt scanning (This way, the same data could be used for my financial management.) and typing.The first 2 methods require some data re-orgnization process and manual verification. Then, everytime I take something out of the fridge, I have to update it in a convenient way.

Now, let's talk about the management. Each item in the database will be assigned a freshness period or an expire date. Along with the date I put it into the fridge, the program can determine the order of the list. An enhanced funtion could be recommending recipes according to the top items on the list.

Most of the proccssing and calculation can be done in my PC. On the fridge, there are only a LCD display (a touch screen will be too luxury), a commnunication transceiver (most likely wireless) and input devices (scanner and buttons).

Honeywell to acquire Tridium (December, 2005)

2005-12-25T15:11:00.000-05:00

Here comes another interesting acquisition. Some people even said this case is more or less like IBM acquiring Microsoft at its beginning in building automation industry.

Is Tridium going to become the Microsoft in BA industry? Maybe. Tridum has successfully got its Niagara Framework platform behind many building automation product lines in the market, such as Siemens Steafa Talon system, Honeywell Webs and Invensys I/A series. In September 2005, Johnson Controls launched a new system based on Niagara AX platform called Facility Explorer System. By now, almost every traditional BA giant has at least 1 product line powered by Tridium. And among HVAC manufacturers, CarrierOne Comfort Integrator and Mcquay MicroTech II Chiller System Manager are actually Tridium JACE controllers.

But, wait a minute. How about Echelon, the owner of Lonworks? I figured out years ago, this company want to be BA Intel + BA Microsoft, with Neuron Chip in every Lonworks controller and LNS network operating system in most of the Lonworks networks.

Well, so far, no one dominates the market, because companies learned a lot from IT history and became more and more alert. As a result, on any potential direction, there are more than 1 runner. And existing big players can not afford a single chance of losing the game, they just follow every direction. The game of "de facto standard " is harder and harder.

But they do have difference. Echelon tries to have everybody speak Lonworks, while Tridium accepts all the existing communication protocals including Lonworks and bring them easily on web pages.

The interesting thing here is that this acquisition blurs the line between competitor and partner. Try to replace "Tridium" with "Honeywell" and read the first paragraph again. How do you feel? Will this acquisioin affect Tridium's market presence among Honyewell's competitors after it lose the independency in BA industry? I finally find the answer. Tridium does not care! Its ambition is more than BA and HVAC industry.

Johnson Controls plus York

2005-12-20T12:55:00.000-05:00

My last post lists a couple of numbers and statements regarding these 2 companies before the aquisition. From there, we can tell the margin in conventional HVAC market is much lower than building automation and controls market. Even the later one is getting lower and lower every year. But, despite all of these, as publicly held companies, JCI and York have to grow, to make more money. And that's why they went together.

My first impression of this acquisition is like Logitech (a computer peripheral device manufacturer), instead of HP, buying Compaq (a former giant PC manufacturer). But now, I more and more feel this like the merge between AOL and Time Warner in HVAC industry. But ..., I did not mean that this acquisition will repeat the same bad consequence. JCI's current business is much more solid and robust than that of AOL at 2001.

In their presentation to investors (Aug. 25), JCI defined a 200B Building Enviroments market, in which, HVAC controls is 12% of the pie and mechanical equipment is 17%. In fact, it is just a combination of all the neighbour markets that new JCI participates. And personally, I don't see it as a new market unless there are unique products for it, New gargets are somthing I really want to see from this kind of acquisition, as I mentioned in Carrier+AL case. However, both JCI and York are companies over 100 years and in stable markets, technology is often not the priority in business decisions. They are not Google. The math here is 1+1=2.

Where I found 1+1>2 is the oportunities JCI and York penetrate each other's existing customers to sell new controls/mechanical equipment, and more importantly, new combined service. Yes, service is likely the last paradise in this highly competed market. Everybody knows this but how to cook it well is interesting and more difficult. Good luck.

Over all, I am exited to see this combination and looking forward to see more fresh changes in HVAC world.

A Chilled Water System Analysis Tool

2005-12-15T00:10:00.000-05:00

This tool, as the developers metioned, is "intended to direct analysis effort toward the most promising cost reduction opportunities". And it can be downloaded from CEERE. Need some personal information to get it.

Also, Industrial Energy Conservation Guide looks good. I need some time to read it.

Johnson Controls to acquire York (August, 2005)

2005-12-11T22:59:00.000-05:00

If you visit www.york.com now, you will see a footnote under its YORK logo saying "A Johnson Controls company". This $3.2 billion aquisition was announced in August and completed on Dec. 9th.

JCI controls sales in 2004 is $6.1B, 23% of the group sales. Controls operating income in 2004 is $284M, 22% of the total (from JCI 2004 Annual Report). York sales in 2004 is $4.5B with operating income of $128M (from York 2004 Annual Report, which is no longer available online).

To read through each company's Form 10K required by SEC is too much for me. But I like the Part I, which gives me a general picture of the companies and the markets.

Here are some of the quotes.
"Key factors in the award of installationcontracts include system and service quality, price, reputation, technology, application engineering capability and construction management expertise."
"Worldwide, approximately 40 percent of the Controls Group's sales are derived from installed control systems and approximately 60 percent originate from its service offerings. Also,approximately 35 percent of segment revenues are derived from the new construction market while 65 percent are derived from the existing buildings market."
"The services market is highly fragmented, with no one company being dominant.Sales of these services are largely dependent upon numerous individual contracts with commercial businesses worldwide and various departments and agencies of the U.S. Federal government."
-JCI

"Products compete on thebasis of product design, reliability, quality, price, efficiency, acoustics, and post-installation service.Architects and engineers play an important part in determining which manufacturer's products will bespecified and ultimately used in an application."
"The global equipment markets are driven by new construction and replacement sales in almost equal proportions."
"Our Global Applied service business competes in a very large but fragmented market, where individualmarket shares are typically in the single digit range. Most of our competition consists of thousands ofindependent mechanical contracting companies delivering services and purchased products. Other competitors include manufacturers such as Trane and Carrier and some non-manufacturing national companies such as Johnson Controls."
-YORK

Carrier to acquire Automated Logic (April, 2004)

2005-12-03T15:39:00.000-05:00

Carrier(CCN), York(ISN) or Trane(TracerSummit), each HVAC manufacturer has its own control system. But most of the systems are mainly sold with their HVAC product. These control systems are more like small islands away from the mainland (BAS market). The aquisition interested me because it was first time that I saw a conventional HVAC player took action in the native BAS market.

The following policies were issued, which I think were to protect each other's market share.

The United Technologies relationship will reinforce Automated Logic's continuing focus on technology and innovation.
Carrier Corporation, the acquiring subsidiary of UTC, is committed to the Automated Logic brand and to its independent network of authorized dealers.
Automated Logic dealers will continue to deliver and service the ALC product line, and Carrier will continue to deliver and service the Carrier CCN product line.

And, what's more? Did they all lived happily ever after? I don't know.

Last year, a Carrier control guy guessed that they may soon have a new thing to replace CarrierOne utilizing the the Bacnet open protocol technology from AL. (CarrierOne is acutally a Tridium JACE controller acts as a gateway between CCN and 3rd party control system) Well, after a year and half, CarrierOne is still there.

It is natural for a technical guy to assume the combination of 2 expertises will bring new gargets, like traditional people believe a marrige will lead to children. The real game is more complicate.

To cheer you up at the end of this boring story, here is a stupid joke. Take a look at CCNWeb, a new HMI for CCN system. Feel the java applets and somewhat "Tridiumized" graphics (especially the AHU one). See, Carrier DO have a child, not from his wife, but his mistress.

VAV system - installation

2005-12-01T16:20:00.000-05:00

Normally, all the VAV controllers in a project are sent to the VAV supplier. In the factory, an enclosure is mounted on each VAV box. The base of the enclosure contains a transformer and a controller directly coupled to the damper shaft. As showed in the top picture, I've seen 2 types of enclousure (base+cover) so far. The left one is with just 1 screw, pretty difficult to put the cover back. The right one is with 4 screws.

In order for site people to see the damper position /check the network connection /replace a controller, the cover of enclosure has to been removed and put back on complishing. A lot of time is wasted without any production. What I suggest is to remove the whole enclosure system and expose the controller, or decrease the size of the inclosure just for the trasformer. Now the design such as the position indicator of the controller is meaningful!.

Excel 5000 Lon (1)

2005-11-30T21:43:00.000-05:00

If you use Care5+EBI to do a job, a lot of twist is on the way.

Firstly, Care5, the engineering tool, has its own Lonworks network mgmt tool, which is not LNS based. On the other hand, EBI, the frontend, is LNS based. Thus, in order for EBI to see all the Honeywell Lon Controllers. All the controllers commisioned by Care5 have to be re-commissioned by LNS.

And since you don't have the control of the assignment of node ID in LNS, one controller will have different subnet/node IDs in LNS and Care5. Therefore, if you want to modify a controller managed by EBI, you will have to re-re-commission the controller to get back it subnet/node ID in Care5. After the changes, go back to EBI, re-re-re-commission the controller.

Honeywell realized that this process could be a mess and came up with a tool called RSS. RSS happens to be one of the hotest word on Internet recently. The "hotware" RSS stands for Really Simple Syndication, while the Honeywell RSS stands for remote sync server. Don't get confused. Hoeywell RSS will be installed in EBI PC and Care5 acts as the client side software. Briefly, it tries to automate the process of commanding LNS to follow Care5 database. For more information, check the documents come with the software.

Visualizaion in Building Automation system (2)

2005-11-30T14:15:00.000-05:00

For people along the assembly line
Visualization exists not only at the final graphical presentation for the operator, but also during the BAS engineering process.

Big companies tend to divide one thing into sevral tasks, such as hardware design, software design and graphics design. Each specialist concentrate on his/her own business. And there is little consideration on how to pass the information seamlessly.

For example, the hardware designer read through all the spec. and mech. drawings to understand the structure of the control system. The graphics designer may have to go through them again to determine the menu system/navigation structure. These is because the hardware design does not consider the graphics when he/she create the control drawing index.

Another example will be the control sequence. The hardware designer copies or rewrites the control sequence for each unit/plant. But those sequence are not obvious for the software designer to get the idea at first look. He/she has to read through carefully to figure out what the program should be. And normally software designers have a standard software library. It takes quite awhile for him/her to pick the standard module and modify them. Is there a signal system on the hardware drawing to expedite this?

Visualizaion in Building Automation system (1)

2005-11-29T16:24:00.000-05:00

Display of unit modes

Normally an air handling unit has multiple operating modes in NA control systems. The basic modes are Occupied and Unoccupied based on the unit schedule.

Then, according to indoor/outdoor thermal conditions, there are

Morning Warmup/Cooldown----After Occupied time to rapidly overcome the temperature/setpoint difference
Optimal Heating/Cooling---Prior to Occupied time to meet the setpiont at the beginning of the Occupied mode.
Night Cycling/Purge----During Unoccupied period, for space low temperature protection or for free cooling.

Obviously, if Optimal Heating/Cooling works properly, Morning Warmup/Cooldown modes will not be activated even they are programmed. Therefore, in most of the cases, a unit will have 5-6 different operating modes.

These modes can be running without the awareness of the operator. However, professionals in charge of the operations may want to know if each mode really works, how frequently each mode happens or what the unit has been through last couple days.

My current thoughts of how to visualize these informations.

A graphical presentation of what happened last day from 0:00 to 11:59. (Should think about what is the best log structure to support this function.) Each mode is given a different color. The concept is similar to Metasys Time of River.
A report of each mode's active time, maybe with a pie chart. It is easy to give the hours from the very beginnning, but better if this period is selectable. Since I want to see not only if Night Cycle really been activated but also how much running time I can save if I lower the Night Cycel setpoint by 1 degree.
Can I setup something to evaluate the energy saving by night purge (free cooling) vs. power consumption of the fan running?

About chiller in series

2005-02-10T19:24:00.000-05:00

1 ON-OFF CONTROL IN THE "OFF" POSITION:
Note:
Water-cooled, ccntrifugal chillers CC-1 and CC-2 shall bc off, as well as chilled water pump P-1A. Associated condenser water system, including cooling towers and condenser pumps P-1 and P-2 shall also be off.
* Sequence of operation is based on two chillers, each sized for 50% of full cooling load with 42 [degrees] chilled water supply and 60 [degrees] chilled water return.
* Sequence of operation does not include discussion of the condenser water control strategy. Refer to previous Back to Basic Tests #75 and #76 for blow-through cooling tower sequence of operation. Refer to previous Back to Basic Tests #73 and #74 for draw-through cooling tower sequence of operation.
2 ON-OFF CONTROL IN THE "ON" POSITION:
Facility operator shall manually start both chillers unit-mounted "on-off" switches at the associated control panels, CP-1 and CP-2. Interlock control signal shall start chilled water pump P-1A. Associated P-2 shall also start while P-1 waits for control signal from chiller CC-1 to start. Chilled water flow switch FS-1 shall confirm (P-1, P-1A, P-2) is delivering sufficient chilled water flow for CC-1 to start its refrigeration cooling process. Chilled water flow switch FS-2 shall confirm (P-1, P-1A, P-2) is delivering sufficient chilled water flow for CC-2 to start its refrigeration cooling process.
Chilled-water supply temperature control transmitter TT-1, set at (51 [degrees]F, 55 [degrees]F, 60 [degrees]F), shall maintain CC-1 supply water temperature setpoint by signaling CC-1 self-contained, refrigeration controls within its control panel (CP-1, P-1, CT-1).
Chilled-water supply temperature control transmitter TT-2, set at (42 [degrees], 45 [degrees], 50 [degrees]), shall maintain CC-2 supply water temperature setpoint by signaling CC-2 self-contained, refrigeration controls within its control panel CP-2.
3 MINIMUM COOLING:
Chiller CC-2 shall provide minimum cooling capacity with TT-2 maintaining 42[degrees] supply water temperature by modulating the centrifugal (pump, tower, compressor). At minimum load (less than 50%), CC-1 refrigeration cycle shall remain off as chilled water return temperature shall be (42[degrees], 51[degrees], 60[degrees]) or colder. As chilled water demand increase, CC-2 compressor shall continue to produce 42[degrees] chilled water supply up to the full capacity of CC-2 (50% of system capacity).
4 MAXIMUM COOLING:
As the demand for more cooling capacity increases and chilled water return temperature increases above 51[degrees], chiller CC-1 refrigeration cycle shall start. Associated P-1 shall start based on control panel CP-l signal to start CC-1 refrigeration cycle.
Maximum cooling capacity shall be provided by CC-1 and CC-2 in (demand, parallel, series) operation. Temperature transmitter TT-1 shall maintain 51[degrees] chilled water supply leaving CC-1 by modulating its associated centrifugal compressor towards (100%, 50%) capacity. Temperature transmitter TT-2 shall further cool the chilled water supply down to 42 chilled water supply leaving CC-2 by modulating its associated centrifugal compressor towards 100% capacity. In turn, and as demand is reduced, CC-1 and CC-2 compressors shall unload in series while continuing to produce primary 42[degrees] chilled water supply.
ANSWERS FOR CHILLERS IN SERIES WITH CC-2 AS LEAD BASIC SYSTEM -- DESIGN TEST: 2) P-1A; P-1A; 51[degrees]; CP-1; 42[degrees];:3) compressor 51[degrees];4) 100%.Just C&P from web, need to look into it.

The Nigerian Scam

2005-01-09T23:20:00.000-05:00

This is one of the spam email I received, which is one variation of the famous Nigerian Scam. Take a look and be aware of this kind of trap.
$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$?
Dear Friend,

I guess this letter may come to you as a surprise since I had no previous correspondence with you.

I the chairman tender board of Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC).I got your contact in my search for a reliable person to handle a very confidential transaction involving the transfer of
US$20.5million.

The above fund is not connected with arms, drugs or Money laundering.It is the product of an over invoiced Contract awarded in 2001 by INEC to a foreign company for the construction of high rise estate in the federal capital territory.

The contract has long been executed and payment of the actual contract amount has been paid to the foreign contractor leaving the balance,which my colleague and I now want to transfer out of Nigeria into a reliable foreign account for our personal use.

As civil servants we are not allowed to run foreign accounts. Hence we have chosen to front and support you as the beneficiary to be paid.If you are interested in the proposal kindly get back to me by sending me your letter of acceptance along with your direct telephone and fax numbers, we have decided to share the money in the following percentage,60%for us 30% for you the account owner and 10% for all local and international expenses that may arise in the course of this transaction.

Further details about this transaction will be discussed in the subsequent correspondence. Note also that the particular nature of your business is irrelevant to this transaction and all local contacts and arrangements are in place for a smooth and successful conclusion of this transaction.

Be informed that we are aware of the way email proposals of this type are being sent from this part of africa and as regards that,you should please treat this with utmost attention knowing fully well that you cannot and will not be compelled to assist us if you are not disposed to.

Contact me via my email account with your contact telephone and fax Numbers, so that I can call you for a discussion.Confirm your capability in this transaction.

Thank you as I await your response.

Sincerely,
Kola Badmus Mohammed.
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