Archive for September, 2010

CAS BACnet Explorer – No network devices found

Published by Steven September 15th, 2010 in BACnet and CAS BACnet Explorer. 0 Comments

CAS BACnet Explorer uses a 3rd party network library called Winpcap to help with the low level networking. Its the same network library that is used in Wireshark. You network card must be supported by Winpcap to be able to use the CAS BACnet Explorer. 99% of all network cards should be supported with the exception for a small selection of wireless network cards.

Wireless adapters: these adapters may present problems, because they are not properly supported by the Windows Kernel. Some of them are not detected, other don’t support promiscuous mode. In the best case, WinPcap is able to see an Ethernet emulation and not the real transiting packets: this means that the 802.11 frames are transformed into fake Ethernet frames before being captured, and that control frames are not received. Again, refer to the http://www.micro-logix.com/WinPcap/Supported.asp to discover if your adapter works. If it doesn’t, you can use the trick explained in this video to capture its traffic.
Source: http://www.mirrorservice.org/sites/ftp.wiretapped.net/pub/security/packet-capture/winpcap/misc/faq.htm#Q-16

If you can not detect any network devices on the Settings->Network dialog in CAS BACnet Explorer your network device may not be supported by Winpcap or more likely you are not running the CAS BACnet Explorer as an administrator.

To run CAS BACnet Explorer as an administrator

1)  Right click on the CAS BACnet Explorer.exe and select “Run as administrator ”

Did you like this post?

Subscribe To The RSS Feed!
To catch many more articles like this in the future, make it easy on yourself and subscribe to me via RSS. You will not regret it!

Do you have a question?
We will do our best to try and solve any building automation, protocol, integration problem you may have

CAS BACnet Explorer – Connecting to different types of networks

Published by Steven September 15th, 2010 in BACnet, BACnet MSTP and CAS BACnet Explorer. 0 Comments

The CAS BACnet Explorer can connect to BACnet IP/Ethernet/MSTP simultaneously. You can see what network connections you currently have enabled on the bottom right hand corner of the main dialog. Green = Connected, Gray = Not connected, Red = Problem or starting up. Only the MSTP connection will ever turn red as it may take some time for the CAS BACnet Explorer to join the MSTP network.

Note: These icons are click-able for more information and stats about the current network. Especially useful for debugging BACnet MSTP connections.

You can select what networks to connect to from the settings dialog -> Networks.

BACnet Ethernet connections require you to select a network device and check the BACnet Ethernet box. The network device should have an IP address (non 0.0.0.0) . If your computer has multiple network cards you will need to select the one that is physically connected to your BACnet network. The network device also has to be supported by Winpcap. Most  physical network cards will be supported but only a very limited Wireless network card are currently supported.

BACnet IP connections require you to set the network device as well as the BACnet IP port, most of the time this will be the default 47808 (Bin) or 0xBAC0 (Hex) .

BACnet MSTP connections require you to select the com port, Baud rate, and a unique MAC address. The com port must be connected to a RS485 converter before being able to communicate on the MSTP network. The RS485 converter must be configured and connected correctly to the MSTP network before a connection can be created. The Baud rate must be the same as all device on the RS485 network that you are attempting to connect to. The MAC address must be unique on the network and it is suggested lower then 127 depending on your network configuration. No two devices can have the same MAC address on the same RS485 network.

If you are having problems connecting to your MSTP network, check the MSTP network stats by clicking the MSTP icon in the bottom right hand corner of the main dialog


Did you like this post?

Subscribe To The RSS Feed!
To catch many more articles like this in the future, make it easy on yourself and subscribe to me via RSS. You will not regret it!

Do you have a question?
We will do our best to try and solve any building automation, protocol, integration problem you may have

CAS BACnet Explorer – Writing to the Device Object identifier

Published by Steven September 14th, 2010 in BACnet and CAS BACnet Explorer. 0 Comments

Most BACnet devices set the device object identifier via some custom configuration software or physical switch on the device. A small and growing amount of devices allow you to configure the device’s object identifier by writing to the devices object identifier using the BACnet protocol.

How to write to the devices object identifier.

  1. Start CAS BACnet Explorer version v2.01aQ or greater is required.
  2. Discover your device
  3. Right click on the “object_identifier” property of the device and select “Write property“
  4. Change the data value to your desired object identifier value and click the send button

If the device does not support this operation you will get an error similar to this

Note: CAS BACnet Explorer version v2.01aQ or greater is required.

Did you like this post?

Subscribe To The RSS Feed!
To catch many more articles like this in the future, make it easy on yourself and subscribe to me via RSS. You will not regret it!

Do you have a question?
We will do our best to try and solve any building automation, protocol, integration problem you may have

Can I use a T connection to connect a BACnet MSTP device?

Published by Steven September 14th, 2010 in BACnet MSTP. 0 Comments

Q: Can I use a T connection to connect a BACnet MSTP device?

A: No you can not use a T connection, MSTP requires both the positive and negative wires.
Note: MS/TP actually requires 3 wires.

Did you like this post?

Subscribe To The RSS Feed!
To catch many more articles like this in the future, make it easy on yourself and subscribe to me via RSS. You will not regret it!

Do you have a question?
We will do our best to try and solve any building automation, protocol, integration problem you may have

Pages