BACnet Development Kit

Frequently Asked Questions

Question: Who designed the BACnet Development Kit?

Answer: Steve Karg, the same engineer who created the Open Source BACnet Protocol Stack hosted on SourceForge.net. Steve's brother Lou and Lou's friend Dan created the website and handle the orders.

Question: How much is shipping?

Answer: The cost of shipping is included in the price.

Question: I don't have a Paypal Account, but want to purchase a board. How can I pay?

Answer: We use Paypal to process the orders, and Paypal accepts all major credit cards. No Paypal account is required.

Question: It appears that complete schematics and source code will be able to form an excellent foundation for our project. Is that true?

Answer: Yes, the complete schematics and source code are open source. RS-485 and AVR are easy to develop for hardware - no secrets there! Steve wanted to provide an embedded platform to demonstrate a BACnet device using his open source BACnet Protocol Stack hosted on Sourceforge.net. Steve also used cross platform schematic layout and PCB design tool EAGLE CAD from CADsoft for the schematic and PCB design, with a small enough board to qualify for the "Lite" version.

Question: You've chosen Atmel - what a fantastic choice - I use Atmel AVR's everywhere so this will not be a problem. The problem I am having, due to my limited experience with BACnet, is the other physical layer options for the BACnet interface such as Ethernet, and Lon. Do you have any experience, advice, options, for supporting these interfaces? The RS-485 is the primary requirement but we are also hearing that Ethernet and LON are going to be stronger in the future.

Answer: Steve doesn't know much about the BACnet LON interface, and doesn't hear much about any field demand for it while at BACnet committee meetings. It has been his experience that the popular BACnet datalink layers are BACnet Ethernet, BACnet/IP, and BACnet MS/TP, with BACnet/ZigBee as up and coming. Steve doesn't see much future in the BACnet ARCNET datalink layer, and only knows of two BACnet vendors that use it. Some installations are needing BACnet PTP (RS-232), so he might enhance the firmware on the board to include that (when he can find the time!).

Question: Any plans for a development kit that also supports these BACnet options (BACnet/IP, BACnet Ethernet)?

Answer: Steve is planning to create an ARM7 kit that includes both RS-485 and Ethernet - perhaps in 2010. He wants a platform that he can develop a BACnet router for inclusion in his open source BACnet Protocol Stack. The beauty of BACnet protocol layering permits routing of the messages to various physical layers that are supported.

Question: Please tell me that you have stock of your standard BACnet developer's Kit? I'm sure I'll be placing an order very soon.

Answer: We normally have BACnet Development Kits in stock. Large orders may require a six week lead time.

Question: Do you have a recommendation for BACnet tools or PC interface for your kit?

Answer: Steve normally uses a BACnet/IP to MS/TP router for BACnet testing accompanied by Wireshark and the demo applications from the BACnet Stack which test the application layer. There is also VTS (BACnet Visual Test Shell) from SourceForge, but most find it a bit challenging from an ease of use point of view.

For a low level MS/TP monitor, Steve uses a USB to RS485 converter and the mstpcap demo tool from BACnet Stack demo tools. Steve has designed a small and simple USB to RS485 converter, but has not completed a production run. However, there are several other commercial converters available, in addition to the Cimetrics U+4 MS/TP interface.

BACnet/IP to MS/TP Routers can be purchased from Polarsoft (about $850), Cimetrics (about $895.00), and Contemporary Controls (about $299).

There is also commercial BACnet testing software, such as Polarsoft BACbeat or Cimetrics BACnet Explorer, which may help during development.

Chipkin has BACnet software, including a free demo that provides a BACnet Explorer over BACnet MS/TP or BACnet/IP.

On the AVR side, the kit includes standard AVR 2x3 ISP and AVR 2x5 JTAG connectors so that standard Atmel ICE and ISP tools can be used. It also includes FTISP jumpers to allow programming using the FTISP over the USB connection.

Question: Can you help us get a service to validate the sourceforge code that we implement will work with any BACnet building? How would I accomplish this?

Answer: The normal route for testing BACnet products is BTL (BACnet Testing Labs). BTL will test your product for BACnet compliance for a fee and issue you a BTL Mark if your device passes the tests. It usually takes several iterations of testing and fixing to get your product correct unless you have someone test your device prior to submitting.

There are BACnet testing facilities that can provide pre-testing, such as Polarsoft or BACnet Interoperability Testing Services

Question: Where is the BACnet Development Kit built and assembled?

Answer: The first set of BACnet Development Kit circuit boards were fabricated by Advanced Circuits and assembled and soldered by Steve in his basement with parts from Digikey and Mouser. That process took a lot of time, so we found a good manufacturing partner. All BACnet Development Kits are currently manufactured by Temco Controls.

*Atmel and ATMega are all registered trademarks of the Atmel Corporation.