Building Management Systems

[sillysod]

Anyone on here work with BMS? We have used KMC in the past but found the support was poor. Any suggestions?

[Crazyjoker77]

I've got alot of expeirence with Metasys (jhonson controls) and Insight (siemens) Between the 2 systems we have ~ 900 buildings running off them.

I find the metasys UI much nicer and more flexible the equipment is much cheaper and works with more universal equipment which also helps to keep pricing down. That being said I do find their service department is rather frustrating to deal with.

Insight on the other hand uses alot of propriety stuff that ends up being pretty expensive. I find the components are alot higher quality and have a much lower failure rate than the jhonson branded stuff. The UI also I don't find nearly as nice and can be alot more limiting.

Really when it comes down to BMS systems whoever does the programming is gonna have the biggest effect on your expierence and reliability of the system and really depending on the scale and what you are actually wanting to control/monitor a generic PLC setup can't be beat.

[sillysod]

Thanks for the response,

We use Allen Bradley but it's a small BMS with like 6 devices (air sensors, fan sensor, C02 etc.) The cost of the AB and a touch panel is way too much for these little jobs.

Which one do you find best for small jobs?

[Crazyjoker77]

I'm a big fan of AB PLC and most of my expierence is on them but I agree for just 6 I/O its definatly overkill. Are you looking for just control or wanting monitoring as well? If you dont need a GUI I've had pretty good luck with the IDEC process PLC's they have 8 I/O and a intergrated power supply the programming is also very similiar to the AB software. I've used them before for small processes (lift stations, tank management, Waste Oil Systems)

Also may be worth looking at some of the haz gas systems as some of the panels have alot of features that may be all you need.