Building Automation Knowledge Base

Issue Third party device does not provide a place to terminate the shield on the comm bus cable. Environment MSTP Infinet Cause Comm cable shielding is required for MSTP and Infinet buses but a controller does not provide a termination point for the shield. Resolution The shield on a comm cable works something like a drain, by redirecting any electrical interference to ground. rather than allowing it to degrade the data signal. If there is more than one grounding point on a shield conductor, often there is the potential that the two ground points have difference of electric potential.   Such a situation could cause the shield to actually introduce electrical interference as the current passes from the point of greatest potential, through the cable and to the point of lowest potential.  For this reason a shield should always be grounded on one end but never be grounded at both ends.  These days many field bus controllers include non grounded shield terminations that simply serve to connect all shield wires as one continuous conductor that are drained by the master controllers shield termination point which is grounded. Where there is no shield termination, simply make sure that the shields from two comm cables are connected together.  

Issue Methods to edit output files from the Report object to customize reports. Environment Continuum Report Object Cause The Reports generate .PDF and .SVG files when configured as a chart. How can these files be modified to produce a tailored report? Resolution There are four file formats that can be produced with a Report object. Text HTML Easily editable with a text editor such as Notepad or Word. Text XML Easily editable with a text editor such as Notepad, Excel, or Word. Chart - PDF Typically, PDF files are not easily modified but you can use Adobe Acrobat Professional to add  simple text to your Report or export to a Microsoft Word format where you can then edit the report as much as you want. The downside to this is that Adobe Acrobat can be an expensive purchase and the end result from these conversions is that some text fields are cut off or displaced.  Chart - WEB (SVG) Another option is to use the Web format for your Report, configured from the Output tab of the Report object, to save the Report chart as a .SVG  (Scalable Vector Graphic) file. This format is very similar to XML and can be edited with a simple text editor. There are also SVG Editors available that allow creating / editing SVG files in a graphic canvas such as what Illustrator provides. One such application is Inkscape Open Source application available at the link below. http://inkscape.org Information on the SVG format can be found on the Wiki at the link below. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scalable_Vector_Graphics

Issue Video Layout will not pop up when triggered from an alarm Environment Windows Continuum 1.9x Cause Workstation Preferences not setup Resolution To fix this you need to go into the workstation, edit workstation, go to preferences, go to No.27 in the list where it say "Video on Alarm" change the value from None to ether Layout or Monitor, this will now allow your Video window to pop up on alarm

Issue Network Question Environment Continuum 1.XX All controllers Cause Ethernet Cable question. Resolution Not only is Category 6 cable future-safe, it is also backward-compatible with any ... What is the difference between a CAT5 and CAT6 patch cable? Cat 6 will be overkill but will work fine. It has more stringent specs for crosstalk and noise than 5e and is designed to support 10GBASE-T.  

Issue A graphic displays the values of 50 points from a Third party controller. The graphic launches normally and all point values update normally while the graphic is running. Once the graphic panel is shut down the controller drops offline.  Environment 3rd Party Device BACnet Pinpoint Graphic Cause While pinpoint graphics poll point values sequentially, when a graphic is shut down pinpoint will unsubscribe from all of the points at once. While some 3rd party devices can handle large numbers of unsubscribe requests, other devices may overwhelmed when too many requests to unsubscribe occur in close succession. Resolution Use Plain English to mirror points form the 3rd party device to local numerics.  Display mirrored points in the graphic panel rather than the actual points in the device.

Issue During the uprev of Continuum, the database initialization utility takes a while to update the database. Environment CyberStation SQL Cause Many factors will determine how long it will take for the database update process to complete. These include but are not limited to: - Size of the database - Server performance - Network performance Resolution The main factor determining the time it will take to update the database if its size. as a guideline a 6 GIG database will take about 30 minutes to update.

Issue Need to know if the counter input on a xPDI8 meets the 140 hz specification that is called out in the Project Specification.   Environment xPDI8 xPBD4 Counter input Cause Need to know if the high resolution counter input on a xPDI8 or an xPBD4 Resolution While the xPDI8 counter input is rated for 140 Hz. this spec is based on a 50% duty cycle rate.  In any case, the minimum pulse width we can read on a high resolution counter input is 3.57 ms.  Anything less than 3.57 ms cannot be read reliably by the XPDI8.

Issue Temperature sensor input point is not updating. Sensor works fine on another input. Environment i2 controller Cause The threshold may be incorrectly set. For example, if it is set to 10 instead of 0.1. Resolution Check the threshold and make sure it is set to 0.1.

Issue Do IOU modules retain their current state when they lose communication with the host NetController? (NC1, NC2) Environment CX9900 CX9400 CX9680 IOU Modules Cause Documentation Resolution Upon losing communication with the NetController, output modules (DO-4. AO-4 etc) start a 260 *** second timer (4 minutes and 20 seconds), if communication is not restored before the time expires the module turns off the outputs as a safety measure. For Digital outputs the outputs will be turned OFF. (Invert attribute is taken into account). For Analog outputs the output value will be set to zero. *** For access control modules (AC1, AC1A, AC1Plus) the timer is 10 seconds to avoid leaving a door unlocked for an extended period of time.

Issue Contact information for product support for EasyLobby Visitor Management. Environment CyberStation EasyLobby Visitor Management. Cause Documentation Resolution EasyLobby directly supports their software plus the Continuum - EasyLobby integration software. Please forward all EasyLobby support requests directly to them. support@easylobby.com 781-455-8558

Issue Infinet controller could not see points on its parent controller (CX9680). When the parent controller was reloaded all references to point in the parent controller were broken.  Now none of the child infinet controllers can see points on the parent controller. Environment Infinet NetController BCX Handles LSX280 External references Cause The LSX280, which is the old SX8000 system service tool can be destructive to a Continuum based system. The LSX280 uses a very different process to calculate object handles.  Doing learns with the LSX280 can damage the object handle structure of a Continuum system in ways that may be hard to repair.    Resolution Ran the Import Export Fixup Utility.

Issue Controller error log reports the following modbus error codes.  0x0000f806 0x0000f808 0x0000f80c   Environment Modbus RTU Stop Bits Cause Incorrect comm port configuration. Resolution Changed the comm port configuration from 1 stop bit to 2 stop bits.

Issue How to dump object from a PE program Environment CyberStation Cause Documentation Resolution Use the DUMP keyword to dump objects from a PE program running in CyberStation. Example: Dump MyNetwork\MyController\MyObject to "C:\Temp\MyObject.txt" The object will be exported in DUMP format, there is no way to do the same in CSV format.

Issue Performance of the Netcontroller could be slow because of the scan rate Environment All Netcontrollers Cause Programs and functions that are polling data frequently can drive up the scan time Resolution The scan cycle has the following components to evaluate and process: System variables, download schedules, update inputs, run programs, update outputs, process alarms. Any of these can drive up the scan, but typically there is a program that is requesting polling updates on child controllers (infinet, mstp, modbus) that is driving up the scan. To troubleshoot this, disable all of the programs and enable them one by one to determine which programs are driving up the scan. Once that is determined, focus on adjusting the program accordingly. Performance of the system can be affected by a slow scan time and normally as the scan rate goes up, the performance goes down. An extremely high scan rate would be 50 where the performance is unusable, but could still be working. A scan rate of less than 1 second is ideal, but the real measure of the acceptable rate would be determined by the end user. A scan time of 5 seconds may be acceptable. The scan rate is similar to CPU utilization on a PC, so that high utilization over long periods of time will be more taxing on the controller.

Issue Knowing just the serial number of a controller, how to determine the options configured. Environment CX, bcx Cause How to determine a controller's configured options when only knowing the serial number. Resolution When a controller is online with CyberStation simply run ContinuumExplorer, navigate to the controller, select and right-click on the controller and select Edit. Look at the Options tab. However, if the controller is non-functioning then contact the US Repair Dept at (978) 475-9600 Press 2 then 3 or via email at tacus.WLCrepair@schneider-electric and provide them with the serial number and controller type. They can look up the options that have been configured.

Issue After installing Continuum, on launching Cyberstation Continuum does not display the logon dialogue box.  Cannot launch the logon dialogue manually because no Continuum icon appears in the notification area of Windows task bar. Environment Cyberstation Continuum Logon Cause Problem with the OS installation or the corporate image that was used to install the operating system. Resolution Following a reformat of the workstations hard drive and reinstallation of the operating system, Cyberstation installed properly. 

Issue Does Schneider Electric offer replacement labels to convert the Smart Thermostats to other languages? Environment Viconics T-Stats French, German, Italian, etc. Cause It is desired to have labels on the wall mounted thermostats that are in the native language of the installation site. Resolution Unfortunately, there is not an offering for labels for the sensors for any other languages.

Issue How much future schedule data can be put into a BACnet Schedule and stored in the controller. Environment Continuum BACnet Cause Need to store a years worth of Exception events in a BACnet controller and unsure if the BACnet Schedule performs the same as the Infinet where it only stores 7 days of events going forward. Resolution Unlike Infinet controllers, BACnet controllers will store all the Exception events in there schedules. This includes past as well as future exception events. (It's important to clear out the past events to free up space on the controller.) The total number of exception events depends on the amount of memory available in the controller being used. In Continuum v1.94 with the latest build of v4.5 firmware, we find that a Schedule in a b3 controller has the following memory requirements. 1. Blank b3 had 46624 bytes available. 2. Each BACnet Schedule object will consume 416 bytes. 3. Each Exception Event will consume 60 bytes. 4. Each Time Value in the Exception Event will consume 12 bytes. 5. Exception Events can be created (and saved to the controller) up until 1-Jan-2105. These events, all the way up to 2105, were stored in the controller. In this example, and only using an ON/OFF time value pair for each Exception Event, you will (theoretically) be able to store a bit more than 535 Events in a single Schedule (If this was the only created object in the controller.)

Issue Continuum logs clear logged data when size or interval is changed. Environment All Continuum CXs i2 devices Cause Function as designed. Resolution Continuum logs automatically clear any existing logged data if the size of interval are changed.

Issue Modbus RTU enabled on controllers comm port, loaded with correct XDriver, and configured correctly but does not communicate. Environment bCX1 Netcontroller II Cause There is a rare occurrence where older implementations of Modbus RTU upgrade cookies may not be properly installed even after seeming to uprev properly. Enabling both the Modbus RTU and Modbus IP bits in the upgrade file seems to resolve this. The upgrade procedure has now been changed and all future implementations of Modbus will have both the Modbus RTU and Modbus IP options enabled on the comm port being upgraded. Resolution For existing controllers that have already had the Modbus RTU option added to the comm port but have not validated that it works and are now seeing this problem, obtain a new upgrade cookie from Repairs requesting that both the Modbus RTU and Modbus IP options be enabled. All new orders for Modbus RTU or Modbus IP will have both options enabled on the comm port so this problem does not occur in the future.