Multiple CBus Networks to connect as one (Aussie)

Hi all, first time poster. Hoping someone can direct me to the correct sub forum here, there is sooo much information.
Essentially the property I'm involved with has two seperate CBus networks (house and office), located about 300mts apart. They are currently connected via SAVANT, which since being installed has been a constant pain in the rear with constant connection failures. The client wants to ditch SAVANT as not using other features other than connecting the two CBus networks. Additionally client wants to add another out building, again about 300 metres away in the other direction.
There is 6 core fibre optic cables between all of these locations with spare cores available.
The goal is just to connect the current 2 and future 3rd, controllers together as one network and using what I have been told is the WISER app for local control.
The buildings are on a property of 20 or so acres, with new conduit infrastructure between buildings with spare capacity.

Any help greatly appreciated, Thanks In Advance.

 

Hi
I did a job in the ACT where the buildings were 500 meters apart and the connection was via fibre I used media converters at each end (fibre to serial) plugged in a PCI and I think I treated it as a network bridge ?!* it was a long time ago however it worked well. I ran Schedule Plus as a head end as there were about 10 or 12 networks all up. I would run Wiser as head end access for your job.

 

I think your memory is failing you here . You can't use 2 PCI's back to back as a network bridge. It just doesn't work that way. What you would have done is have individual serial ports on the PC running Schedule Plus connected to each remote serial PCI. Schedule Plus will support multiple concurrent networks as it uses CGate which itself support multiple concurrent networks. The Wiser only supports a single network so will not work here.

Unfortunately there is no simple way to do this with Cbus which is probably why the original installation used a Savant solution.

Perhaps if you described what sort of interaction you require between the networks we could come up with some other suggestions.

 

Your correct Ashley memory a bit slow however the job was done in 2008 I had to find the old files for that job and we used CNI

 

Thankyou Graham for the reply. I will add some more info directly

 

Thankyou also Ashley, for the reply. I will add some more detail or wish list here.
The owner essentially wants to control, at least lighting points across the site, and then introduce some event based options.
eg. Visually the acerage site starts with an auto gate that has a building adjacent, a very very long driveway to the homestead, and continued long driveway to a another building (office). The three locations are connected with fibre, gate to house, and house to office.
Currently the homestead and the office have cbus, connected via SAVANT. (which has been unreliable)
Owner would like to control lighting points for the office from the homestead or phone app, and visa versa.
Additionally wish to install CBus at the building adjacent the gate, so additional flood lighting can be installed and also operated from the house, office or app.
The company that installed it are no longer involved.
A new CBus contractor is looking at the system and said for this to be operationally like the owner wants without Savant, that the Cubs network needs to be "all one network". Ha also admitted not being familiar with achieving this so I thought I would come to this forum for some guidance. I am a retired sparky trying to assist some friends with what their best options are.
Apparently Savant was also used because of its options to integrate air condition, security etc, but alas, not of that is used, just cbus.
Thankyou again for sharing the benefit of experience that you folks have.
cheers

 

The simplest solution would be to run a Cbus cable from the main network to each other network and connect them with a network bridge. Then you could use a Wiser or SHAC (or Touch Screen) on the main network to control everything. No modification would be needed on any network.

You could just connect them all up as a single network, but that would probably require a lot or re-configuring to avoid unit and ga confilicts. It all depends on how big each network is.

 

Ashley, thankyou so much for your reply again, it helps.
Question, Is there a distance limit for the connecting cable?
Distance will be more than 250mts there about.
Was on site this morning and talked with electrician. we thought that simply running the cable out on the ground and temp connection to confirm was first step, then pull the cable in the conduits if that is successful. Also, if it was successful, install cable to the third location as well.

Thanks again for the support Ashley, cheers

 

Each network can have up to 1,000 metres of cable.

If you want to try connecting the two networks without a bridge, make sure you don't go over the 2A total powers supply limit (don't trust toolkit here as someone may have entered the wrong unit type into the database. Toolkit itself can't tell which units have power supplies. If the unit type ends in a P it DOESN'T have a power supply).

Also, make sure no units have duplicate unit numbers. If you have duplicate group addresses it will still work, but you will get interactions between units.

 

Great stuff Ashley, great stuff. Thankyou.
I will pass this info on and establish what we have.
The plan is to try it out late next week.
I'll post the details and outcome here in case yr interested.
Really do appreciate your input and help.
Have a great weekend, (rain here in SE Qld), cheers to you

 

Hi all, just a quick update and a thankyou for assistance.
We did our test yesterday (in the SE Qld rain) and things went great.
We rolled out the required 240 meters of cable on the ground and connected the remote office. Programmed some light switch's in the homestead for the office. Besides the rain, the whole thing went without a hitch.
Took stock of the power supply situation across the site.
next step is to install the cable with a spare through the conduit network and also do the same for the remote shed at the main gate, to control floodlighting etc.

I'd like to be able to return here if I have any other amateur questions, and want to thank the contributors for your generous effort in assisting.
cheers to you
Macca