Control Network Newsletter
Free BACnet Discovery Tool Simplifies Troubleshooting
Installing BACnet devices can be challenging for a number of reasons. You may be dealing with BACnet/IP, BACnet Ethernet, BACnet MS/TP, or a mix of protocols. Regardless of the complexity of your installation, Contemporary Controls' BACnet Discovery Tool (BDT) automatically discovers BACnet devices and their properties to make troubleshooting easier.
BDT is a free BACnet/IP application for Windows® that is easy to install and use. This vendor-neutral tool is an excellent means for discovering and verifying communication with MS/TP devices that are being accessed through BACnet/IP routers, such as our BASrouter, BASrouterSX, or Portable BASrouter. Even though other BACnet device vendors offer supervisor software with additional features, it may be cumbersome for some users to configure.
In addition to being able to discover BACnet devices, BDT allows you to investigate the objects contained by any discovered device. You can examine the properties of any common object by double-clicking its object line. There are three writeable elements – Object Name, Write Value and Priority.
A variety of BACnet devices also allow you to write the device instance and device object name. You can save discovered devices to a text file. The BDT can scan for single devices and points and graph scanned points.
BDT Version 2.14 includes several new features and an enhanced BACnet software tool for device discovery and configuration. For example, with Version 2.14, BDT can graph scanned points in real-time, and the graph can display multiple points.
BDT remains a valuable resource for the community and is provided for free from Contemporary Controls. To learn more, or to download BDT, visit the BDT Software Download page.