Building Automation Knowledge Base

Issue How can I get audible alarms with I/NET 2000? Environment I/NET 2000 site Cause How can I get audible alarms with I/NET 2000? Resolution First, in Control Panel, sounds, ensure that a sound is selected for default sound. That is the sound I/NET will use. Second, if you cannot hear anything, and you have the amt configuration set for either timed or constant, it does work with the small speaker inside your pc. The trouble is, it may be barely audible or your pc may not have a little speaker inside. If so, you may want to purchase a sound card and speakers.

Issue What are the cable requirements? What is the maximum wire length? When do I add a repeater? What is the maximum number of repeaters allowed? Product Line TAC INET Environment I/NET Controller LAN, C-LAN Cause Incorrectly run controller LAN wire can cause communication issues between I/NET controllers and hosts. Resolution C-LAN should be run using: Two wire, twisted pair, shielded cable 24 AWG (0.206 mm2) or larger 30 pF/ft. or less between conductors 55 pF/ft. or less conductor to shield 80 - 150 ohm impedance The maximum controller LAN length is 25,000 feet (7,620 meters) assuming 4 repeaters are used. A repeater should be installed: To segment every 32 controllers Or if the LAN length exceeds 5,000 feet (1,524 meters). The maximum number of repeaters allowed is 4.

Issue Although data is read correctly from the TSI Pressura RPM20 Hospital Room Pressure Monitor when integrated to a SmartStruxure Solution Automation Server, Modbus read errors and framing errors are seen. Product Line EcoStruxure Building Operation Environment SmartStruxure Solution Automation Server SmartStruxure Solution Automation Server Premium Modbus RTU Cause The instruction manual from the manufacturer incorrectly lists  the Modbus communication parameters for the RPM20 as 9600 baud, 8 data bits, 2 stop bits and no parity. Resolution Investigation of the data from the device shows that the Modbus communications parameters are: 9600 baud 8 data bits 1 stop bit No parity Ensure that these parameters are set in the Automation Server Modbus Master Network configuration.

Issue What are the dip switch settings for a 78010 Host/Link/LAN Tap? Environment I/NET site Cause What are the dip switch settings for a 78010 Host/Link/LAN Tap? Resolution 5,7,8 in the up position

Issue What cable is used to connect a PC to a 78010 tap? Environment I/NET Site Cause What cable is used to connect a PC to a 78010 tap? Resolution CBL004 for 25 pin connector and CBL071 for 9-pin.

Issue On which LANs can you place an FOI ring? Product Line TAC INET Environment I/NET Site Cause On which LANs can you place an FOI ring? Resolution A Fiber Optic Interface can be placed on: Host Controller Sub-LAN See Fiber Optic Interface, Ethernet, C-LAN, and Sub-LAN communication for further information.

Issue Can you MIP a 7770 ICI? Environment I/NET site Cause Can you MIP a 7770 ICI? Resolution Yes, a stand off from the electronics shop is required to raise the MIP about a 1/4 inch.

Issue Can NPR 2000s be installed on a network that implements VLSM and CIDR? Environment I/NET Site Cause Can NPR 2000s be installed on a network that implements VLSM and CIDR? Resolution If you see anything other than 0 or 255 in the subnet mask of a PC or NPR, this is usually an indication that the customer is using Variable Length Subnet Masking on his network nodes and Classless InterDomain Routing on his commercial routers. The subnet mask gets logically handed with the TCP\IP address in some way and the router passes through a different address than the host/NPR actually sends. This reduces the number of TCP\IP addresses that a domain must register but the NPR 2000 cannot do this. The customer has the choice of only using PCs to the exclusion of NPRs (and that is a maybe), abandoning the VLSM/CIDR approach, or enabling proxy-arp on his commercial router.

Issue Which ports must be open on a commercial router in order to communicate with an NPR over a WAN? Product Line TAC INET Environment I/NET NetPlus Routers (NPR) Model Series 2000 Cause In most cases when communication occurs over the Internet or Corporate Networks, firewalls are in place to block unwanted traffic. I/NET utilizes Ports 50069 (set by default). These ports usually need to be configured within routers to allow I/NET to communicate correctly. Resolution For successful communication for I/NET over TCP/IP all routers must have these ports open / non-filtered I/NET Ethernet communication is via UDP port 50069  Telnet on the standard telnet port 23. A suggestion for those difficult IT departments who have setting to block ports and communication, one more solution suggested that I/NET be moved off the house network and put on a subnet. If the IT gurus really know their stuff, they would understand that. I/NET is providing a valuable tool for their company, saving tons of money, and the have it on their house network! Creating a clean subnet is essentially a free solution, all that has to be done is configure the ports on the network, and let I/NET run clean and freely without all their firewall and control settings. There is no need to have it on the house network and then the Hosts could see and communicate with the routers without issue.  

Issue What are the consequences of using DHCP addresses for I/NET? Environment I/NET site Cause What are the consequences of using DHCP addresses for I/NET? Resolution Although the host PCs can communicate with each other using DHCP, the NPR has no facility for it. (The investigation for this has been mentioned in an SRS document for a host load many months into the future. Read here “Just forget about it”.) Even if you get the hosts working with dynamic IP addresses, the host masking editor will continue to grow. At the very least it will be a nuisance to edit. They may encounter problems where the reference host will not allow the PC to run I/NET because it already has a listing for that host number and/or that link number associated with a different IP address. Then they have a mess. Try to insist on static IP addresses for I/NET boxes….host or NPR

Issue Can a site edit indirect points from the serial port of an NPR 2000? Environment I/NET Site Cause Can a site edit indirect points from the serial port of an NPR 2000? Resolution In the currently released rev. one may not successfully edit an indirect point when connecting via the serial port on the NPR 2000. This includes NPR and Integrated NPR dial profiles. When the resident i/o point is opened, the link address for the designated global point is 255 by default. If you leave it, the editor returns an error message when ok is clicked that the point address is invalid. No attempts to enter a correct link value will be accepted. This was reported but proclaimed "as designed" but recently the decision was made to rectify this situation. The fix was discussed for a future release. For now, all such indirect points should be added/modified via Ethernet. BTW, remember that indirect points which refer to Link or System level global points can be ruined by editing them via a host with an incorrect or incomplete configuration

Issue What speed are the NICs on the NPR 2000 Environment I/NET Site Cause What speed are the NICs on the NPR 2000 Resolution Even though most NIC cards and hubs now run 100+ Mbits, the built in card on the NPR only runs 10 Mbits and half-duplex at that. Shouldn't be a throughput issue since we are not exactly passing streaming video or anything else requiring great bandwidth.

Issue Can the serial port on the NetPlus Router (NPR) communicate at 9600 baud? Product Line TAC INET Environment NetPlus Router (NPR) 2000 Cause Configuration inquiry Resolution This specific configuration port is capable of transmitting data only at a rate of 19,200 baud.

Issue Site may be migrating from I/NET to another access control system and would like to import the data. Product Line TAC I/NET Environment I/NET Seven SQL Management Studio Cause The site is migrating from I/Net to Continuum or another access control system. Resolution Open SQL Management Studio and create a New Query by clicking on the "New Query" button Run the script below: SELECT * FROM InetDb.dbo.IdWorksView Note:  This view only shows the Primary Group associated with each individual.     Select File>Save Results As... Save the file as a .csv to a location of your choosing

Issue How does the reference host function work and how should it be implemented? Environment I/NET Site Cause How does the reference host function work and how should it be implemented? Resolution Reference host is a widely misunderstood concept. Proper usage is as follows. Pick one computer or NPR to serve as reference host. Enter its TCP\IP address in the reference host field of all other hosts and NPRs. Do not enter anything in the reference host field in the configuration of the reference host itself. The reference hosts job is to insure that all hosts and NPRs have a complete list of all other hosts and NPRs that have referenced it as the reference host. After the initial setup of the site, all hosts/NPRs have IP routing info for all other hosts/NPRs so that even if the ref. host is off, the remaining hosts/NPRs can still connect to each other. There have been problems caused by reference hosts referencing themselves as reference hosts. Another item to be aware of is where 2 or more reference hosts reference each other and someone connects temporarily with or without a shared link. Or maybe some one changes a link designation on an NPR. This "infects" all hosts with the erroneous link or address. In an attempt to clear it out, a customer made new configurations for each host but continued with the same ref host scheme so as he brought up each host with its new config, it received the infected IP list from the other hosts. If NPRs are used, the cleanup is even more complex. Another problem was caused as a customer entered the address of each NPR into the reference host designations in his computer. He did not enter anything for reference hosts in the NPR configs. Therefore, they had no routing table for use in passing global point data between them. Each NPR only knew about itself and the host that referenced it, not each other.

Issue How can telnet be used to troubleshoot, configure or maintain an I/NET system with NPRs? Environment I/NET Site Cause How can telnet be used to troubleshoot, configure or maintain an I/NET system with NPRs? Resolution Telnet is a good way to establish whether we are able to communicate at all with an NPR, provided that telnet hasn’t been disabled in any commercial routers in the system. Once connected, the user can list all of the IP address in the NPRs routing table, delete specific addresses or all of them, and add IP addresses to the list. This approach could be used to clean out erroneous IP entries from the routing tables, add new entries, and check the revision and build number of the firmware.

Issue What is the correct cable to use to communicate with the NPR 2000 via its serial port? Product Line TAC INET Environment I/NET Site Cause The getting Started book incorrectly specifies that you may connect the com port of the computer to the com port of the NPR 2000 using a standard serial cable. Resolution The correct cables are the same cables used to connect to a 77xx01 emutap, the CBL072. Cable Connectivity to I/NET has more information on this cable.

Issue Can NPR 2000s be installed on a token ring network Environment I/NET site Cause Can NPR 2000s be installed on a token ring network? Resolution NO - Although INET hosts may work, NPR 2000s only have Ethernet NIC cards in them. Even then, token ring networks are not officially supported for the hosts.

Issue NPR restore does not restore host masks Environment I/NET NPR Cause At one time, doing an NPR restore via the serial port did not restore the host masks and restoring from the Ethernet did not restore the NPR passwords. On the other hand, if the NPR was completely cleared, you could not connect via Ethernet as it had no IP address so you had to restore the first time via the comm port. Resolution Do an NPR restore to an empty NPR via the serial port Followed by another via Ethernet

Issue This NPR 2000 communicates fine on one network segment but not another. Why? Environment I/NET Site Cause This NPR 2000 communicates fine on one network segment but not another. Why? Resolution A site has the NPR 2000 which refused to communicate on the Ethernet. When they moved it from a 400 foot LAN segment to a 100 foot segment, it worked. Although 300ft. is the standard limit, the ferrite ring on the internal network jumper may have some impact on that. For that matter, if that jumper is suspect for any reason, the network cable can be plugged directly into the NPR 2000s NIC card temporarily for diagnostic purposes.