North Building Technologies

Communicating with a Carrier Dataport 2 system does not require a lot of configuration within the CCNDP2 Compass Point. However, there are several variables to bear in mind when attempting a link to a Carrier system, especially if this is your first job. This guide should help the engineer to establish a successful link between a Carrier system and ObSys, either via the CCNDP2 Compass Point or CCNDP2 OSM.

What objects can be found within a controller?

Carrier CCN controllers are entirely configurable. Points or data within the controller are given text identifiers and then stored in tables which also are referenced by text 'names'. These names are set up during commisioning and it is entirely conceivable that no two CCN controllers would contain the same points.

If you have used the CCNDP2 driver with ObSys you will notice that some tables appear within the view of a controller as default. These are only there as an example and it is quite likely that the CCN that you have will not contain these tables.

Therefore, if the CCN controllers that you wish to communicate with do not contain these tables, ObSys contents files will have to be created manually. Knowledge of what tables are within your CCN controllers is essential.

How do I find out what tables are stored within a CCN controller?

Unfortunately, you can't interogate a controller to discover this information. In theory, whoever commissioned the controller will be able to provide a list of tables. This information should be available from the Carrier installers documentation.

How do I find out what points are stored within each table?

Once you know the names of the tables within the controller, the next step is to find the names of the points contained in each table. Again, you may be in luck and have these written down already, if not then they can be found by using a terminal application.

You will need to contect your PC directly into the Carrier DataPort 25-way D-type connector labelled 'COMM2'. The cable will have to be a 'null modem' (ie the Tx and Rx wires are crossed over) as opposed to a standard 'straight through' cable. Run a terminal program and set up the baud rate to match that of the Carrier DataPort. Set the byte format to no parity, 8 data bits, 1 stop bits. Disable flow control.

To read the contents of a table send the command: 'RT {controller address} {table name}{carriage return}'. For example, to read the table MAINSTAT (table and point names are case sensitive) from controller 1 send:

RT 1 MAINSTAT

You should get a reply in one of the formats below.
Either:

Or:

Both give you the same information. In the first example each line consistes of a text desciption of the point, followed by the value, followed by the point name. In the second example the text description is missing. It is very important that the text description does not appear. If it does, the controller will have to be configured so that it does not. The reason for this is that as Carrier values can be text, and we do not know when the value starts in a line, we have to eliminate all extraneous text. Please consult with Carrier on how to achieve this.

Once you have interogated all of the tables you will have a list of all points available. In this example the points within table MAINSTAT are: MODE, STATUS, T_START, OCC, AMPS_%, STARTS and CHIL_S_S. You can now construct the ObSys contents files.

How do I construct the ObSys contents files?

The first step is to create a folder for each table that is within the CCN controller. Using Windows Explorer find the ObSys directory. Within this is a folder called TypeInfo which contains all the contents information for all of the interfaces. Within this is a folder called CCNDP2 v10. It is within this folder that the table directories must be created.

For each table within a CCN controller a directory with that exact name must be created. As you can see from the diagram opposite a new folder called MAINSTAT has just been created. Within here the contents of the MAINSTAT table will be stored. Once you have created your new folders, you have to make them appear automatically when ObView looks within a Carrier controller. To do this open the folder called Control. Inside this is a file called 'contents.obc' wich is a text file and can be opened with a suitable editor such as 'Notepad' or 'Wordpad'.

As can be seen in the diagram opposite, each line represents a separate table within a CCN controller. You can either choose to add a new line or edit an existing one. Here the entry 'MAINSTAT=!CCNDP2 v10\MAINSTAT;L=MainStat Table' has been added. The entries that you add has to be in the same format, ie where it says MAINSTAT in the example, it should have your tablename. An entry will have to be created for each table. Now ObSys knows that when a Carrier controller is found it will contain the list of tables that you have created.

Now you have to contruct the point list for each table. Using Windows Explorer, open the folder for your selected table. You have to create a text file and name it 'contents.obc' (or copy a similar file from elsewhere in ObSys. Referring to the reply to the RT command that we used in the terminal session above, you need to create a list of points that reflect this. For each point a new line is created. Each line describes how ObSys will present that particular object.

As you can see in the opposite diagram the points within the MAINSTAT table have been entered into the contents file. The object type - in this case Num, Float, or Text is determined by the value returned from the terminal session. Float is used when a value comes back as a floating point value (ie has decimal places), Num is used for integer values (whole numbers) and Text is used for text values (such as Off, Ready, NO, START). This will have to be done for each table that you wish to view the points of.

Now the contents files are complete. Now when you use ObSys and ObView you will be able to read the values from the Carrier controllers.

If you are still having difficulties, or have any feedback on this topic please contact our support team for further information.