Actually I'm having very fundamental BACnet problems with it. Sometimes I can get a discovery but never get point names and can never get multistate key value pairs. My controller can't bind to it with some points throwing unknown object errors and some points working. Working with both WebCTRL and BACnet Quick Test similar results.

Says it is firmware 1.0.0.249, if someone has a update for it I'd like it.

 

Hi Scott,

did you ever find a solution for this?
I have to figure out how to interface with one of these and would appreciate any lessons learned.
I can't even find any literature for this thing on either the Quicklit site or a even just a google search. It looks like JCI has moved on to their new VRF Smart Gateway and have left the CBN series behind.

Thanks in advance!

Mason

 

If I remember correctly they did a firmware update on it and then the tech on site was able to discover and map points and seemed satisfied. I didn't see a lot of info back then either, and I haven't seen one sense.

The thing reminded me of a MAP gateway mounted in a can.

 

Will the VRF gateway provide data points for each outdoor unit (master and slave)?

 

Never worked with this system but have found that most bacnet instances are writable through bacnet. Discover it in WebCTRL and under Device properties you can input a new device instance then click the button next to the instance value (Not Apply). This has worked for me on many occasions. You can do this with bacnet quick test also but i have always found it easier in WebCTRL

 

Two more of these things yesterday, little over 14 hours attending their problems with travel.

Firmware is now at 1.1.0.834 and BTL says they tested good at 1.1.

"Issues"

1. If the device is booted up with no LAN connectivity and is using a static IP, you get no BACnet even after the network comes back up. Port shows "closed" in nmap. Meanwhile web page and everything else works fine, just no BACnet. This creates a race condition so in the event of a power failure hopefully your network whatever this is plugged into comes up first or you get a service call that the entire VRF integration is down.
2. We had a /16 network on one building. eg; 10.35.x.x with mask 255.255.0.0 and a gateway of 10.35.1.1 for example. For some reason the device would not remember the gateway and as a result would not answer anything from other networks, no web page or bacnet. JCI never found a fix for this, luckily our BACnet router is on the same subnet and can communicate to it fine.
3. Once we worked through the above on one site we moved to the other. This was a local only network with a crossover cable. IP assigned was 192.168.168.15 mask 255.255.255.0. Flat out refused to put out BACnet for this network, YABE etc would never see it working, JCI guy worked on this for a couple hours. Changed the network to 192.168.1.15 same /24 mask and now BACnet works. No idea why but at the end of a very long day we took the network change and moved on.
4. BBMD list was unreasonably short, like 5 or 10 entries. Don't depend on this thing for BBMD.

Local JCI reps and phone support were fantastic and very supportive, they sent two techs to us on an unscheduled day.

 

That sounds miserably frustrating. The perception is that there is a base level of device competency.... soo.... why did it take so long?
Lo and behold there is no level of consistent device competency, and what you get is subject to change if you close one eye.....

 

The basic failures with the IP networking are kind of surprising this late in the game for this product, especially after you consider how similar it is to the MAP gateway and the Verasys product lines. I really liked the idea of Verasys and was thinking of picking some up for small jobs but not if this is an example of the software quality.

Also kind of interesting nobody else has experience with these, are we a test market for them or what?