Control Network Newsletter
Reduce your Overhead by Enhancing your JACE
You may have previously seen our promotions for "Enhancing Your JACE" on our website or in our newsletter before. The purpose of the promotion is to help inform customers of the significant advantages that they would receive by offloading the BACnet MS/TP or Modbus traffic from their JACEs via a Contemporary Controls BASrouter and BASgatewayLX.
Joe Dixon, Owner of York CMC, an energy management and HVAC system maintenance company in North Yorkshire, England, recently talked to CCL, Contemporary Controls Ltd. in the UK, about the advantages he sees in using the BASrouter to offload some of his Honeywell Centraline HAWK's traffic.
Dixon stated, "While there is an RS485 Port on the HAWK, I prefer to use the BACnet/IP function of the HAWK, allowing the BASRT router to carry out the routine BACnet Comms Processes, reducing the 'overhead' on the JACE's Processor and memory." Dixon also stated that the additional upfront cost of the BASRT is more than offset by being able to use a HAWK with lower KRU and Heap Memory.
There are many versions of the JACE on the market, some more powerful than others, and as you would expect, the more powerful the JACE is, the more expensive it is. Through using Contemporary Controls' BASrouter users are able to pass off some of the JACE's responsibilities to the router, freeing the JACE up to perform other, more complicated tasks. Customers also have the option of purchasing the BASgatewayLX which enables users to offload their Modbus traffic from their JACE. The virtual routing feature in the BASgatewayLX allows each connected Modbus device to appear as an individual BACnet compliant device which can save configuration time using multiple identical Modbus devices.
Dixon went on to say that he is a proponent of Contemporary Controls' BACnet Discovery Tool (BDT), stating that using BDT helps to simplify commissioning of networks. "The Network and Devices can be discovered and the BACnet Network proved, independently, without the need to connect the HAWK, at an early stage," Dixon stated.
BACnet Discovery Tool (BDT), for those unaware, is a free application for Windows that enables users to verify communication with MS/TP devices that are being accessed through BACnet/IP routers such as the BASrouter.
Through combining the powers of the BASrouter, BASgatewayLX and BDT, users have a powerful and cost effective way to maximize the power of their JACE.