Maintaining C-Bus2 system

C-Bus was installed in the complex of several buildings however the installation had not been maintained because the costs of calling in electricians had been getting out of hand. Over the last 3 years several lights had stopped responding to their wall switches (buttons). Also some building alterations caused more need for programming.
As an expedient to get the most important missing functions working again, I suggested that the building maintenance man take advantage of the C-Bus2 programming that can be done without a computer, even though several C-Bus systems are connected between the buildings.
He downloaded the instructions from the internet and followed them individually in each of the locations even though they are connected together. It solved the major problems and the C-Bus system there now has a better reputation than it did before I interfered! Personally I would prefer they got an experienced C-Bus programmer to do the job properly.
I suspect that a lack of documentation may have been the cause of the high cost of maintenance, and the consequent damage to the reputation of the C-Bus system.

 

I wonder how much the C-Bus community would consider to be the cost of maintaining a C-Bus system properly.

 

Hi Peterpullar,

I am sorry to say in your unwitting attempt to help the client, you may have possibly actually made matters worse for them.

In a large multi building design, often different group addresses are used in different parts of a bridged C-Bus network for segmentation. On top of this, certain switches are linked to lighting groups whilst also being actuated by commands sent over the whole network, for instance to trigger emergency lighting, set after hours lighting modes for the buildings, or enable and disable lighting in areas and those sorts of building 'management override' tasks.

The possibility exists that your new lighting group allocated using learn mode could be triggering another load on one of the other buildings C-Bus network as learn mode just arbitrarily assigned an unused local address. You could even be turning on or off something quite unexpected in another building when your light goes on and off in the local building and it triggers the same address remotely across the bridge network depending on its settings.

You may even have stopped scheduled features such as after hours central 'lights out', Alarm functions (if a C-Bus interfaced alarm) or other functions from working with the load groups involved.

A multi-leg bridged C-Bus network should always be programmed using the Toolkit application. Using Learn Mode just 'muddies the water' in the project config.

Now we know why that sun-blind keeps retracting in building 4!!!

All the best,

Brad

 

Yes. It is only a makeshift fix.
I am working in their organisation, they are not my client.
I look forward to seeing the solution you suggest being implemented soon.

 

Hi Peterpullar,

Sorry, it sounded like they were your client. The other comments pretty much spell out your issues though.

In maintained premises, often several different electricians and installers have been involved over history, perhaps with the site's management changes or the change from builder's site electricians in the build phase to maintenance electrical contractors etc.

This can be a bad thing with maintaining C-Bus networks as the original 'Project File' which is a file used in Toolkit (the C-Bus configuration utility) that holds the information about the modules of the C-Bus network and the tags that describes what each group address does goes missing, or different people have different versions.

Luckily the C-Bus network itself knows its own config and switches, relays and dimmers are allocated to group addresses, but to a newly called C-Bus installer who comes onsite and without you having your project file, all they see in Toolkit is the group address numbers. You can see that a certain light switch toggles a certain relay, but all the names of the circuits like 'Unit 4 Bathroom D/L' is replaced by just 'Group 144'. This situation can lead to a need to do a physical walk-around search to find what is turning on an off for a given group and this is when it starts to take a long time.

If you do manage to convince them to get it back working 100%, I suggest you get a good C-Bus knowledgeable installer/electrician to come and get it back up to date and working properly and look to recreate the proper Project File in Toolkit, either from what documentation you have onsite or through emailing previous maintainers who are usually reasonably happy to forward their version of the file (as long as they were paid that is!! ).

After they have cleaned it all up, make sure to get a copy of the project files on memory stick and you then have something to give any future installer if you need or choose to change something or need something maintained again. Ensure after each service call, you get a copy of the updated Toolkit project file off the engineer/sparky and this will reduce your maintenance costs paying for 'recreating the wheel' each time over again.

Good Luck,

Brad

 

I would have to agree with Brad on this one, a numbe of years ago we inherited a 16 network job with custom applications (not a problem yet, but it will be one day as they aren't in the range of applications reserved for lighting) that had essentially ground to a halt. Three other 'experts' had been in before me - one such expert cut all the bridges out to make one big network, failed miserably and walked away. Awesome fun fixing that one...
The client paid quite a few bucks to have this fixed, as well as changing out the older box style power supplies. I won't post how much, as this site had suffered from poor initial design and installation, so called experts that shouldn't be allowed to operate pliers and no maintenance for over ten years - the client was left holding the bundle.
It will take time, knowledge and effort to sort your project out but the results are well worth it. Before we took control of the job, the client had techs in up to four days a week. Now we dial in every month or so to check over things and have to attend site maybe once every six months?
Peterpulla, it's sounds like you did good work to fix things and please don't take this as a critical response. Multi-networks throw a lot of people and sometimes the only way to learn is to jump in, boots and all. A better option is to work alongside someone with experience, if you have that opportunity.

 

Thank you for your support.

This thread gives me the exact information that I need to show to management so they can make a sound decision on how to handle the problem.
While my temporary fix has undoubtedly caused some damage, it has demonstrated that the problem is a programming issue rather than a hardware failure.
You have clearly spelled out the advantages of having the job done thoroughly by one contractor and thoroughly documented.
And clearly explained why it costs so much to get different people to fix individual problems.
I love the way the CBus project file can have meaningful labels to make the system easy and economical to maintain.

 

Hi Peterpullar,

That's great to hear that it has helped to get your site running smoothly for the future.

A further idea would be for either you or the 'maintenance man' who managed to follow the Learn Mode instructions to attend a C-Bus Basic training course funded by your employer. This will allow you/him to have a better idea what is wrong when something doesn't run quite right and maybe even take over some of the lower level duties yourselves, such as replacing switches that die with age or changing the lighting or switch settings to better match the current building's use. There's always slight tweaks people would make it they knew how to, so perhaps it's worth contacting Clipsal and booking yourself or your maintainer a course. It's got to be a good business decision for your employer.

All the best,

Brad

 

I intend to get some C-Bus training myself because of my own personal interest in making systems work effectively for the people who use it.
I love observing how people interact with systems and incorporating the features that best make it easiest to operate.
However I have never before done any electric power work.
Now having played a little with this system I see interesting opportunities for me to do more work elsewhere helping to create systems being easy to operate, probably just modifying and/or adding to existing systems or supporting the people who do that.
I have no expectation of being paid for my training. It is the maintenance person's job and as much as I am willing to support him, my C-Bus training is mainly for my own interest.
The maintenance man is interested in learning about C-Bus system programming so he can do the basic maintenance on the system.

 

We purchased a Clipsal 550OPCU computer interface and the maintenance man has nearly everything in the system working. He is happy to now have the ability to maintain the system in-house.
Thanks for the support here that helped make this outcome so quick and easy to achieve.

We were very pleased to discover the labels were stored in the system, which saved us from having to locate the project file or identify each unit ourselves.
I am amazed at the inbuilt capability of the C-Bus system and really appreciate the training materials that are so readily available.


I look forward to learning even more about Clipsal C-Bus which I will probably do in late 2015