Panasonic range now at the centre of BMS Connectivity

25/11/2013

The Panasonic range of heating and cooling systems includes greater flexibility for integration into building management systems (BMS) allowing for full bi-directional monitoring and control of commercial heating and cooling applications.

The new interface has been designed specifically for Panasonic and provides the user with full control to monitor the functions on the complete line up of the Aquarea, Etherea, PACi, ECOi and ECO G ranges.

Integrating the various control systems in a building through a BMS means there is a single point of information for the whole building, with the additional benefit that operatives only need to learn one way of how to interface all their building-services information.

There are major benefits to be gained by using a single building-management system to control all aspects of a building rather than having separate control for, say, heating, ventilation and lighting.

The new interface connects Panasonic’s commercial range through a variety of BMS control systems including KNX, EnOcean Alliance, Modbus, LonWorks and BACnet.

“Our new connectivity solutions put the user fully in control of their commercial heating and cooling operations, providing them with the ability to monitor the internal variables of the unit and be alerted to error codes no matter which control system they use” says Marc Diaz, Panasonic’s UK Country Manager. “The configuration and installation is simple and quick without the need for an external power supply which allows for control of basic functions such as temperature to the most advanced integration of all the units parameters.”

Through KNX connection users can monitor and control both ECOi and PACi indoor units which are connected to a Panasonic CZ-CFUNC2 communication adaptor. Up to 64 indoor units and 30 outdoor units can be integrated within a single channel and if you use both channels, up to 128 indoor units can be integrated simplifying installation and management.
Also these interfaces have automatic indoor unit detection which helps to simplify the work of the integrator.

The KNX EIB interface connects directly to the EIB bus and is isolated from the rest of the internal electronics. Connectivity through BACnet devices connected to the BACnet/IP network mean that indoor units can be controlled using standard BACnet objects, as internal data points are monitored by continuous polling by means of BACnet subscription requests (COV).

The Modbus interface analyses the system on power up and exposes information over Modbus. The system updates the information continuously and relevant air-conditioning settings have read/write access while other information is read only.