Using the BACnet® Discovery Tool - Contemporary Controls

MAY • JUNE 2009VOLUME 1 • ISSUE 2A TECHNICAL SUPPLEMENT TO CONTROL NETWORKESSENTIALS®Contemporary Control Systems, Inc.Using the BACnet ® Discovery Tool – BDTBy Bill Greer, Senior Product SpecialistIn the first Essentials publication we discussed issues whenapplying BACnet routers in the field. Our focus was onBACnet/IP to BACnet MS/TP routing — with one side of therouter tied to an Ethernet backbone and the other sidededicated to separate MS/TP networks. But is there a quickway to determine if the router is successfully communicatingto attached devices? We think there is with the BACnetDiscovery Tool (BDT). Although limited to very simple tasks,it is easy to use — and it is FREE!The BACnet Discovery Tool (bdt.exe) is a BACnet/IPapplication for Windows ® that is easy to install and use.It is an excellent means for verifying communication withMS/TP devices that are being accessed through BACnet/IProuters such as those available from ContemporaryControls: the BASRT-B DIN-rail mounted BACnet/IP-to-MS/TP router — or its portable counterpart, the BASRTP-B.The tool is based on an open source BACnet protocol stackdeveloped by Steve Karg. His project is described at:http://bacnet.sourceforge.netAt just over 520 kB, bdt.exe is small — making it a snap todownload. When you download the tool, you can save andrun it from anywhere on your computer's hard drive.We use BDT with our BACnet Interoperability Board. Onthis board we mount equipment from different BACnet vendorsto prove our routers operate with different equipmentconfigurations. In the photo at the end of this article you willnotice mostly Alerton devices being tested, but we canchange out equipment as needed. Although we have moreelaborate BACnet tools, BDT is a vendor-neutral tool thatcan quickly discover BACnet devices. To give you an ideaon how this works, we configured our board with threeMS/TP segments each tied to a dedicated BAS Router.Each BAS Router has its BACnet/IP side tied to a commonnetwork through one of our Ethernet switches. Attached tothe network is a workstation running BDT.We launch bdt.exe by double-clicking its filename or icon.As soon as the application starts, it opens in its own window.It immediately activates its Who-Is service and transmits oneNOTE: For ease of illustration,the screen capture has beenaltered so that two lists thatactually appear one-after-theother,are here displayed sideby-side.Also, both lists (theresponses on the left and thedevice information on the right)are abbreviated.page 1