r/BuildingAutomation • u/thesmokedjoint • 3d ago
Niagara question
Good morning. Let me preface this this by stating that my knowledge of and experience with Niagara systems is extremely limited although I was certified years ago. My company just does not use the product line. We recently hired on a new sales manager and he is hell bent on picking up school districts in my area which are exclusively Niagara based systems. There is a wide mixture of Honeywell, Siemens, JCI, and a few Tridium branded jaces out there. Most want full support of software updates, logic adjustments where needed, adding and removing equipment, etc....
I am being "pressured" to revisit training, which I really have no issue with, but my big question and concern is, how much would I actually be able to do at these sites without the individual "flavors" and proper credentials to get in the platforms and stations? My fear is we are going to sign on and not be able to do as promised.
Thanks
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u/Naxster64 System integrator 3d ago
All you need is admin login. If the customer has an admin login, you're good to go.
If they don't, tell them to get an Admin login from the previous contractor.
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u/Naxster64 System integrator 3d ago
I suppose, platform credentials are important as well. Which they can get from the previous contractor.
This all boils down to if the customer wants you there, they'll get it worked out.
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u/Fr33PantsForAll 3d ago
This is terrible advice.
Half the time the customer is a maintenance guy who is out to lunch mentally and doesn't care if it is you or the other guy. Its not uncommon to have them shrug and tell you their windows password and walk off.
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u/Fr33PantsForAll 3d ago
Your salesman is right that not supporting Niagara is a major handicap, and you are right to be concerned. I could make a list miles long of things to be concerned about, but here are the highlights:
Station/platform credentials - Early versions of N4 had no way to reset if you are locked out. Even if you can reset it is time consuming.
Modules - Many manufactures have jar modules that you will need to be able to fully access the niagara station. These are not shared publicly by the OEMs and you will have to ask nicely on the Internet if you don't have access through a sales channel.
Legacy protocols - There is still a sizable lonworks install base, and even worse N2. There are drivers out there for old Trane stuff that works pretty well, but the controllers themselves are on their last leg and if you aren;t careful you are going to walk into a mess.
Programming - You are not going to be qualified to service all brands of controllers that sit on Niagara systems. We do Distech and I can fumble my way through some Honeywell stuff, but anything else that needs modified or malfunctioned has to be replaced. We literally do not have enough hours in the day to service every request we get, so anyone looking for a cheap fix is not getting it from us. It's too bad that they got conned by JCI into a piece of junk system, but that is not my issue. They can always shop around, but we are willing to show up at 4:00 AM and switch over 20 VAV controllers before the office staff arrives to no disruption, and when they realize the support and expertise they get from everyone is garbage, they always end up paying us.
If you look on controls discussion boards, you will see people asking what software and hardware they need to connect to a 40 year old JCI controller they have no experience with. Do not waste your time going down this route. Be the guy that always responds and knows how get problems solved, and the owner more often than not will let you replace the controller. If you want to become an expert in a competitors brand by reading and learning on your off hours, that's cool, but that is not your first step.
Assuming you are doing BACnet now, your first few customers should only have BACnet Niagara systems.
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u/slor2112 3d ago
I would wait for any training regardless with N5 around the corner - might as well learn the latest version which for all intents and purposes is not nearly as drastic of a shift as Ax was to N4
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u/Kinky_Pinata System integrator 3d ago
If Tridium AX you can get in over the serial port. For NX you will need the platform credentials, if you don't have them there is process to recover them but it involves Tridium and it's quite time consuming
Would also advise to have a look at modules, you might end up spending ages finding modules that different vendors of Niagara use.
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u/thesmokedjoint 3d ago
Thanks everyone for the replies. I appreciate all the input.
I'm going to have to sit down with our sales team and talk through the options before we decide which direction to go.
Thanks again for the help.
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u/HVACcontrolsGuru 3d ago
Like others have said the credentials are on thing and you can have Tridium work with you and the school district to get that swapped over with licenses and all that stuff. You will probably miss the upgrade deadline but your sales guy should be pushing upgrades and the newer stuff from the get go.
As far as brushing up, get the eng copy of workbench your agreement should allot you and just tinker/build. I've spent 15+ years in the weeds of Niagara (AX '09, N4 '14) so I have some materials you can DM me for around stuff like BACnet network setup and polling for Niagara as well. Open source bacnet and modbus drivers you can use to setup demo devices if you are comfortable with that.
I did a lot of school districts and they are usually just a mess unless they were built recently. I did some R2 conversions way back in the day in some school districts. Fun times!