iFIX For HVAC / Building Control

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Thread Starter

Hullsiek, William

We are currently using Infolink and iFIX are part of our MES solution.

The Facilities engineering group is looking at replacing their proprietary system with an open system so we can use the same
applications/tools/servers, etc., i.e., save money by standardizing.

Was wondering if people can offer any suggestions on HVAC / Building control solutions built on iFIX. Or their experience in building a custom solution with iFIX.

William F. Hullsiek
MES Software Engineer
 
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Peter Whalley

William,

I am involved in using iFIX for building monitoring and control using LonWorks based building controllers. It is a work in progress right at the moment and not without problems. See my posts in the last few days with subject: Re: COMM: LONWorks interface to iFIX using OPC.

Contractor has done sample graphics which look OK but these are not in use just yet. Could be around a month before the system is on line and we have some operational experiance.

You may want to look at Citect (or Siemens Desigo which is partly based on Citect), Wonderware or Honeywell's Excel Builing Integrator (EBI) as
alternatives. Citect, Desigo and EBI have direct LNS interface drivers (but check reference sites to confirm they work OK). Wonderware has many
LonWorks jobs under its belt but mainly using DDE interface I think. EBI and Desigo have the advantage of being developed for the building
automation market but they do not have wide support from independent system integrators (Citect qualified integrators could pick up Desigo fairly quickly however). My recent experience locally however is that industrial
controls system integrators charge much more than building automation contractors so going to Citect or iFIX may not save any money. It may
however deliver a better documented job if thats really important to you.

If you go BACNet at the moment you probably end up with single vendor "islands of automation" and proprietary engineering tools but most likely
will have fewer integration problems particularly at the controller level.

Regards

Peter Whalley
 
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Greg Goodman

> Wonderware has many
> LonWorks jobs under its belt but mainly using DDE interface I think.

Invensys ENE (formerly Siebe Environmental Controls) is a building
controls integrator (http://www.invensysene.com/products/controls/).
They have a product and a number of projects built on WonderWare, DDE, and OPC drivers. (I know they use Modbus/TCP and they have a collection of custom-built drivers for various pieces of environmental and HVAC controllers.)

--
Greg Goodman
Chiron Consulting
[email protected] -- http://www.swbell.net/chironsw -- (713) 869-6876
 
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