Control Network Newsletter

BASgatewayLX Simplifies Custom Profile Building

July 2013 - For those individuals interested in developing custom device profiles for the BASgatewayLX, we have improved the process with our newest version (1.2.0.) of the BASgatewayLX which has enhanced custom profile capabilities. Our BASgatewayLX is a very popular device for bringing Modbus devices into BACnet networks.

Users can download 1.2.0 here.

One major reason for its popularity is its easy configuration. Simply load one of our Modbus device profiles and you will have access to all of the Modbus registers for your device. Just check off the registers you want scanned. You do not need to import each Modbus register in the BASgatewayLX. Most other devices will have you configure every register. In addition, if you have a Modbus PLC, which you want to communicate with via BACnet, you may find that you only have a few registers and these registers may change often. Therefore, in this case you may want to build your own profile and if we do not have a profile for your Modbus device, we will create one for you for no charge.

Besides improving the custom profile feature, we also now support BACnet Integer Value and Positive Integer Value. Since both Integer Value and Positive Integer Value objects can be read-only or read-write, we have defined four new object types in the device profile. This prevents the loss of accuracy when reading a 32- bit Modbus Integer value and then mapping this to a BACnet 32-bit float, for example in an Analog input object, if the number is greater than 4 million. With the Integer Value and Positive Integer Values, there will be no loss of accuracy for the full range of Modbus 32-bit Integer Values.

In addition, there is now a Device Profile button on the Mapping Configuration page. By clicking this button, you can see all your device profiles in a new page and delete them if you like. The extended Modbus Utility can read and write Modbus TCP devices and access both mapped and unmapped Modbus units.

For those building their own profiles you can use the Windows-based Profile Checker utility that allows you to confirm you have properly formatted your custom device profile before uploading it to the BASgatewayLX. Download the Profile Checker here.