[nycbug-talk] open source HVAC control software

[Freeman, Joshua]

The New York Botanical Gardens has several buildings with large HVAC installations.  Most of these installations have control consoles from Anderson Control Systems (well... Anderson SOMETHING).

Our operations department has recently been talking to companies that sell systems wherein you have a PC at a centralized location (i.e. NOT one of the boiler rooms, but a quiet office somewhere) running software which enables you to see and manage all of the different control systems set up to manage your HVAC installations.

As I understand it, located near each boiler system is a box with a board in it and some kind of onboard storage with an LCD interface where you set the thermostat and other controls related to managing the system.  This box has an RS485 serial interface.  

The companies that do this stuff basically sell you some kind of RS485-to-Ethernet conversion/interface box .. you network all of your standalone RS485 control units to this master conversion interface box and then the box is on the network and you use client software to control it (switch between the different local control units) and upload your adjustments and changes to the local control units via the ethernet-to-the-RS485 network...

You get the idea, hopefully..

I was all fired up by Phil Moore's talk at the NYCBUG meeting last night.

I'm gonna start googling and checking out freshmeat now.. but I was wondering if anyone on either of these lists knew ANYTHING about this stuff and would be willing to think through what it might take to create an open source version of this....

cheers,

J.

Joshua S. Freeman
Director, Information Technology, NYBG
v: 718 817 8937 m: 347 392 2560
jfreeman at nybg dot org





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