Best low cost scada sytem for cbus?

Discussion in 'C-Bus Wired Hardware' started by PGOLD, Nov 11, 2009.

  1. PGOLD

    PGOLD

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    Hi

    I was looking at using a scada system for controlling CBUS instead of the standard packages to provide more automation control facilities.

    Can people suggest the names of some scada packages that can be used with CBUS and if they have suitable CBUS drivers and development support for CBUS?

    thanks Pete
     
    PGOLD, Nov 11, 2009
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  2. PGOLD

    znelbok

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    More context is required to properly answer

    For home use, I use and recomend Charmed Quarks CQC. It has a C-bus driver and supports many other devices suitable for home use.
    See there web site
    http://www.charmedquark.com/
    and forums
    http://www.charmedquark.com/vb_forum/index.php
    The man the owns it (Dean) is on the forums all the time and he and many others can answer all your queries about it. You can run it in trial mode for 30 days.
    CQC is east to write drivers for so if you have something that is not currently supported you can write it yourself (or get others to do it for you)

    If you are looking for a commercial application, CQC can do it, but Citect has a C-bus driver as well. It is a bit more than CQC though and I have not used it (Only CitectSCADA, not the package with the c-bus driver).

    Mick
     
    znelbok, Nov 11, 2009
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  3. PGOLD

    PGOLD

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    Thanks Mick

    I will investigate CQC package, been looking for something like this?

    I was thinking of using scada for something bigger than home applications - say commercial buildings etc - I have heard about Citect but am told its is very expensive to and complex to use?

    There are quite a number of limitations with Scheduleplus or HomeGate type Cbus packages - they don't handle much interfacing especially logging of data and connection to other products for Power, Energy Monitoring and trending graphs etc.

    I have a number of customers asking for monitoring, logging of Energy use and maximum Power demands of HVAC plants etc.
     
    PGOLD, Nov 11, 2009
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  4. PGOLD

    ashleigh Moderator

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    There are many possible solutions.

    You could use SchedulePlus. This is a Clipsal product and its a poor-mans building/facilities management system. Its not SCADA (but when a SCADA system is used for building/facilities management in general you are using only a small fraction of its ability). SchedulePlus is used to run many, many commercial buildings (including some well known stadiums) and is very cost effective.

    If you want to go a step further, Citect SCADA or Citect Facilities might be the way to go. There are a range of products there, at a range of different prices. It would pay to investigate these further.

    And if you don't want either of those, then using the C-Bus OPC Server, you can link C-Bus to any SCADA system you can find which talks OPC.

    In terms of purchase cost:

    - Schedule Plus is probably the cheapest.

    - If you buy the RIGHT Citect system, it uses the Clipsal OPC Server to link Citect to C-Bus, but the Clipsal OPC server is bundled so the only amount to pay is what Citect will charge.

    - If you buy some other SCADA system then you will need to buy a Clipsal OPC server license, as well as purchase the other SCADA system. This is probably (but not definitely) the most expensive approach.
     
    ashleigh, Nov 11, 2009
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