Bridged C-Bus Networks over Fibre ???

Hi Guys

I have a large project coming up with multiple buildings spread out over a large property. They are separated by up to 600m. Fibre will be run between each of the buildings and the property gate. I need to be able to have a single C-Bus system. This can be made up of several bridged networks, but they all have to be connected using fibre and controlled by a third-party control system from the main house.

The Fibre will carry TCP/IP for various other devices at each building. I have spare fibre tails to each location if there's a way to convert C-Bus to fibre as well.

I can't find any info on how to bridge networks using the CNI or new AC or NAC, but I heard a rumour you can use these devices to do pretty much the same job as a network bridge would do using copper.

Any help would be appreciated.

Cheers
Noyzey

 

Yes CBus across fibre works ok I have done a couple of jobs using fibre one large job in the ACT had 8 CBus networks and schedule plus controlling all networks we had CNIs into media converters however CBus messages don't go from one network to another as they would if using CBus network bridges you will need to add some code in NAC or AC to get this to happen.
Regards
Graham

 

Thanks Graham. I was trying to avoid using schedule plus or home gate. I was told that it was possible using an NAC/AC2 on each C-Bus network with some lua scripting in-between

 

We had a PAC in each network for logic functions and scenes schedule plus was for scheduling only.

 

Hi All. I spoke with Richard within Schneider. Whilst it is possible with custom firmware written by Schneider, any firmware update would wipe this capability. A BACNet server and client has to be setup on a NAC on each network.

 

This is an interesting project. There might be a couple of ways to solve this without a shac or custom firmware. What third party control system are you planning to use? Feel free to PM if you'd prefer

 

I remember yeas ago someone was talking about cutting a network bridge apart at the opto isolators and extending it. Shame Clipsal never took it up.

 

I ended up solving a similar requirement/problem in a slightly different manner. The situation is a house on a farm, with the farm shed and boundary gate both connected to the house via fibre (TCP/IP only - Same as your situation. I have spare cores too, but didn't use them).

I run a PCI connected to the C-Bus network via a "USR" brand TCP->Serial converter, both in the house and the shed. With this arrangement, obviously I have 2 separate C-BUS networks within the C-Bus project.

This is where my equivalent of your 'third party control system' kicks in. I use OpenHAB (and cgate of course) to 'extend' control across the 2 networks. If the controlled 'load' is in the shed, the shed based C-Bus input devices directly control the load in the usual fashion. But I then create a virtual C-Bus group in the house for the same load, and OpenHAB then instantly synchronises the state between the 2 networks.i.e. can use an input device in the house, to control a load in the shed, or visa-versa. And turning on the group locally in the shed, will be reflected on the house input device status as well.

For the gate, I chose not to use C-Bus for the local control aspects, as it was a bit overkill for those requirements (and also has 27vac supply only), but again I use OpenHAB to synchronise C-bus virtual groups in the house, to control devices/actions at the gate.

Happy to share the code for this sync process, if you wanted to have a play with it, but I assume you would implement the equivalent function in your 'third party control system'.

The real caveat here, is whether your project is for your own property, or a client. The above situation is for my residence, and whilst it works completely rock-solid, not sure I would recommend someone implementing something like this for a paying client, which the next electrician down the list in the yellow pages could not support !!

Good luck with your project!!

 

I’ve been working on some scripts for the NAC that allow 2 way comms with CNI networks.
It’s still a work in progress, I had a thread in the automation controller section. Currently can send and receive group messages over Ethernet and the NAC can rout messages between CNI networks as well.
Down side is the CNI’s only support 1 connection at a time so depending on the setup you may want 2 CNI’s on each remote network, 1 for comms and 1 for toolkit access. As mentioned it’s still a work in progress, I’ve only done some limited bench testing with 3 small c-bus networks. I’m yet to deploy it on a project so may not be reliable enough for a client project at this stage.

Send me a pm if interested.