Building Automation Knowledge Base

Issue Are the BCX4040, BCX4000 and b3 line of controllers compliant with the most recent BACnet specification, ASHREA 135 2012? Environment Continuum Controllers Cause The consultant is requiring that all BACnet controllers be compliant with ASHREA 135 2012. Resolution As of August 27, 2014 the BCX1 and b3 family of controllers do not comply with ASHREA 135-2012. This is noted in the PICS statements as the Protocol Revision. The 2004 version of the spec correspond to Protocol Revisions 4, 5 & 6. The 2012 version is Protocol Revision 14 & 15. As of August 27, 2014 the BCX1 and b3 family of controllers comply with ASHREA 135-2004 spec revision.  

Issue What baud rate is the NetController IO bus speed set for and can this be changed? Environment NC1 NC2 CX99xx CX9680 Cause Need to know the bus speed of the NetController IO bus. Resolution The NetController IO Buss runs at 19200 baud.  This is a hard setting and cannot be changed.

Issue AccDataServices crash on launch of Continuum CyberStation Environment CyberStation Cause Bad installation. Looking in Control Panel Add/Remove Programs we see 2 different instances of Continuum Resolution Remove Continuum  in Control Panel Add/Remove Programs Delete the Continuum folder in C:\Program File (or x86) Re-install Continuum

Issue With triac digital outputs, such as those in the i2866-V, what is the fastest they can switched for Pulse Width Modulation (PWM) applications? Product Line Andover Continuum Environment Continuum controllers with triac digital outputs. Cause Require information on using triac outputs for Pulse Width Modulation control. Concerns over minimum pulse times and frequent switching. Resolution The triac outputs on some Continuum controllers (such as the i2866-V) will be able to perform pulse width modulation from a minimum of 0.1s pulses. As apposed to relays, outputs using triac's have negligible wear and tear during extended use. Switching the outputs frequently, such as once a second, should not cause any premature failure issues.  Further data on the triac outputs on the i2866-V: Specification sheet Installation Guide for wiring details. i2 Technical Reference Manual

Issue What is baud rate of the Netcontroller IO Bus? Environment NetController IO Bus ACC Lon FTT-10A Cause         Parameter      ACC LON       FTT-10A Baud Rate    39,063            78,125 Duplex         Half                 Half Data Bits      8                    8 Stop Bits      1                    1 Parity           None               None Resolution The ACC LON data signal is Differential Manchester Encoded.  The packets therefore cannot be viewed with a generic sniffer like a UART based comm signal. 

Issue When trying to discover via BACnet they broadcast the same instance ID. Need Dent Viewpoint software and RS485 converter to change the Instance ID prior to doing Find New BACnet Devices. Environment BACnet MSTP Cause Documentation Resolution Use Dent Viewpoint software and RS485 converter to change the Instance ID prior to doing Find New BACnet Devices.

Issue When trying to update the OS of a BCX9640 to a BCX4040, the update process seems to succeed but the controller remains unchanged after the update process completes. Continuum indicates no errors during the update process. Environment Convert BCX BCX9640 BCX4040 Update OS Firmware Cause Incompatible bootloader. Resolution Update the controller to the most current version of OS for the same controller model before updating the OS with the new model firmware.

Issue For unknown reason, BCX4040 goes offline with solid CPU light, and failed to ping, Webpage can't be accessed, Environment BCX4040 Cyberstation 1.80 and above Cause Not clear what cause this issue, Not all the BCX4040 with solid CPU light can be recovered. Resolution Press "reset" button on PCB board for a long time, at least over 10 seconds, if the CPU light goes off, it is possible to recover the BCX4040 Press "IP Reset" on PCB board for over 60 seconds, Maybe not bring the controller into factory default setting Ping the BCX4040, if success, go to the next steps Start Continuum, and bring BCX4040 online, then downlaod, According to the steps above, I have recovered at least 4 BCX4040 and AX5720/5740.

Issue At times it is necessary to monitor an external variable to trigger action in SmartStuxure Lite Environment Smart Struxure Lite Smart Struxure Continuum AS MPM Windows 7 Windows Server 2008 Cause Need the ability to trigger actions from an external variable to run a lua script Resolution Use a lua script in your MPM that copies the value of ME.PG#_ENABLE.value to an Analog/binary value. This value can then be seen from the AS or BCX through bacnet and you can have the AS or BCX do different functions depending on that value

Issue Having communication issues with Schlage PIM devices attached to ACX2's 485 port. Environment ACX57xx Cause Documentation Resolution The ACX57xx RS485 port has 47K resistors on the +/- lines. The 47K on the plus line is pulled up to 3.3v. The one on the minus line is pulled down to ground. They are both 1/16 watt resistors.  

Issue Site has a personnel database with about 10K records, the site is switching to dual credentials and has configured the Personnel Manager to use HIDCorp1000 as the default for card type 2 and xxx as the default for Site Code 2. Problem is when going to change the personnel the Card Type 2 field still comes up with Infinity37 and Site Code 2 of 0 instead of the configured defaults. Environment CyberStation Cause Any existing personnel in the database will come up with Infinity37 for the card number 2 and 0 for the site code 2 as those were the values populated in the SQL database for those fields when the system was configured for only one credential. When creating NEW personnel objects the fields show the configured default values. Resolution When creating NEW personnel objects the fields show the configured default values.

Issue What are the RS-485 parameters used for Infinet communications? The baud rate can be set but the other parameters are not exposed in the Comm Port settings. Environment Continuum Infinet Cause Values not exposed in Comm Port settings dialog. Resolution The Infinet Protocol RS-485 parameters used:   1 start bit 8 data bits No parity 1 stop bit No flow control

Issue i2887/ b3887 Cool starts on Power failure Environment i2887, b3887 i2887-L-230, b3887-L-230 i2887-L-115, b3887-L-115 Cause The i2887 and b3887 do not have a RAM battery backup. Resolution The i2/b3887 is one of the range of low cost i2/b3 controllers that does not have a RAM backup battery. It has no concept of a Warm start that would save working values in the RAM. It does however have Flash Memory that allows the controller to save all of its points and programs. After a power outage these points / programs will be copied into RAM and start running from their first line (if they are Autostart) in what is called a Cool Start. Its ACCRestartMode mode will be ACCCoolStartOnly.   Other i2/b3 controllers that do have a RAM backup battery will allow the ACCRestartMode to be changed as required.

Issue What is the Operating System used in the Continuum Controllers? Environment Continuum Field Controllers Cause Customer wants to know if a common Operating System is used. Resolution The Operating System for the Continuum Controllers is a proprietary Operating System developed in-house specific for each Controller's Hardware platform. 

Issue The PIM seems to be timing out or bouncing Online and Offline, indicating loss communications. Environment Schlage Integration with Continuum Version 1.94 Cause The PIM seems to be timing out or becomes unresponsive due to invalid setting of Parameter 5, it needs go be set at 0 and not 1. Resolution The resolution for this is as follows: NetControllerII - ONLY Comm2 (RS485) is supported for this application, with Parameter 5 of the Global Config set to ZERO, regardless of the symptom or setup. ACX57XX - ONLY Comm1 (RS485) is supported for this application, with Parameter 5 of the Global Config set to ZERO, regardless of the sympton or setup. Once changes have been made, open the Global Config Numeric and change the value from 3 to 99 Apply the changes and then click on the Refresh Button until the value comes back to 3.

Issue Is there a way to concatenate access events from two Personnel objects into one Personnel object?  Environment Continuum Cyberstation Cause A Personnel object had a history of events and was then mistakenly recreated as a duplicate object. The original object was disabled and new events have now been tied to the new duplicate Personnel resulting in events for the same person being spread across two Personnel objects. Resolution The Access events produced are linked to each individual Personnel object that created them. There is no way to transfer these events from one Personnel to another.

Issue Unable to launch Continuum Reports Suite on a Windows 7 64-bit workstation Product Line Andover Continuum Environment Windows 7 64 bit workstation Cause "Continuum_Reports" directory permissions Invalid "Reports.exe" launch path in PE Program "Reports_Suite" (or other PE Program) is Disabled Attempting to launch Continuum Reports directly Resolution "Continuum_Reports" directory permissions Log into the workstation with Administrative privilege Edit the "Continuum_Reports" directory properties Click on the "Security" Tab Click on "Edit" button Highlight "Users" Click on the "Allow Full Control" checkbox Click on "Ok" button Invalid "Reports.exe" launch path in PE Program Edit PE Programs, such as "Reports_Suite" Change the statement: RepPath = "c:\progra~1\continuum_reports\" -to- RepPath = "c:\progra~2\continuum_reports\" Save change Enable the PE Program if Disabled "Reports_Suite" (or other PE Program) is Disabled Edit the PE Program Review the Program Configuration Enable the Program if Disabled Run the PE Program Attempting to launch Continuum Reports directly Continuum Reports cannot be launched directly from the Windows Explorer by double-clicking on "Reports.exe".  Continuum Reports are launched by running a workstation PE program from a Menu Page button or a Pinpoint button

Issue What are the Continuum door's attribute which values persist for ONE scan only. Environment Plain English Cause Documentation Resolution DURESS VALID ACCESS VALID ATTEMPT ENTRY EGRESS VIOLATION INVALID ATTEMPT DATABASE FAULT ENTRY KEYPAD TAMPER EXIT KEYPAD TAMPER

Issue B3 program not work properly some time, but be correct at some time, for example, the function called program response slowly, only output the upper limit and lower limit. Environment Continuum B3 Cause This issue caused by lack of freemem for the b3s although there is not too much program and objects or logs entries. Some customer edit the program in Microsoft office word enviroment and paste it into Plain English , this result in a lot of Blank line in the  program and occupies many memory, When the freemem is under 2000bytes, some program will not work properly. Resolution Remove some blank line or comment charcaters in the programs and keep the freemem is above 2000bytes.

Issue WebPinpoint will not install or error finding WebclientPinpointSetup.cab Environment WebClient WebPinpoint Cause Partial WebPinpoint installation or WebClientPinpointSetup.cab is not located in the expected folder. Resolution 1. In the browser machine look in control panel program and features, if you see WebPoinpoint is the list of programs when it is already installed, if you suspect the installation is no right then unistall Webpinpoint then try to open a Graphics which will cause the Webpinpoint installation to run again. 2. If WebPinpoint istallation can't locate the installer then go to the machine where the Web Server Continuum software was installed and... a) Look in C:\Program Files(x86)\WebServer\Redist, there should be a file called WebClientPinpointSetup.CAB if the file is not there you need to locate it on the machine and copy it to said folder.