Designing a BMS (Building Management System) with UI (User Interface)

[Tainted]

I never done a design of a BMS (Building management system) and would like some guidance.

I've seen a BMS system where someone can login to the building network and monitor/control all sorts of mechanical equipment.

How is this typically done? What materials/wiring/connections are involved to make this work?
You can give me some examples and software/hardware you used.

 

[Jraef]

Creating one from scratch is a challenge, it’s really difficult and the learning curve is expensive, for everyone involved. People like Johnson Controls (Metasys), Honeywell, and Siemens (Apogee), are the biggest, but there are probably hundreds of smaller suppliers.

 

[Tainted]

Creating one from scratch is a challenge, it’s really difficult and the learning curve is expensive, for everyone involved. People like Johnson Controls (Metasys), Honeywell, and Siemens (Apogee), are the biggest, but there are probably hundreds of smaller suppliers.

Is there any courses out there that can teach you? It’s really hard to find since it’s so specialized

 

[hillbilly1]

Is there any courses out there that can teach you? It’s really hard to find since it’s so specialized

Is it home automation? I think Square D has some courses for their systems (if they still make them). I’ve had several Novar (now Honeywell) courses given by the customer (Walmart). I also had courses on several other systems, but they were for large customers. They are not really that hard to install, but apparently the software is hard, but that’s on the customer’s end. They seem to have a hard time programming it to work right.

 

[zbang]

Oh my, I can't see why anyone would want to create a BMS from scratch (unless they have 20 years to do it).

Assuming you plan to use a commercially-available system (post #2), the brains for most of them are server-class computers using PCs as the management terminals. They often have proprietary hardware to connect to the field devices but may use commodity data networking gear to connect the parts.

Just spitballing some of the parts-
HMI design & graphics
Determining what field hardware gets connected for control or monitoring and how.
If any automation is needed, what is it? That's a very deep rathole and depends on whether the BMS is talking to other controllers or doing everything.
What needs to be logged? to throw an Alert? are there actions based on those alerts?

If all you want to do is check/set the home thermostat, see the outside temperature, and know that the sump in the basement is getting high, that's fairly easy. If you want time-of-day control of multiple HVAC zones, water pumps*, cooling towers, and maybe a boiler, that's a trifle harder . IME (which is quite old now) most of the large system vendors know what questions to ask and how to produce a working system. It may not do exactly what you want, but it'll be a starting point.

* on/off/speed control, is it actually running?, pressure in & out, maybe flow monitoring, might even have a vibration sensor. And that's just one pump.

 

[hillbilly1]

Oh my, I can't see why anyone would want to create a BMS from scratch (unless they have 20 years to do it).

Assuming you plan to use a commercially-available system (post #2), the brains for most of them are server-class computers using PCs as the management terminals. They often have proprietary hardware to connect to the field devices but may use commodity data networking gear to connect the parts.

Just spitballing some of the parts-
HMI design & graphics
Determining what field hardware gets connected for control or monitoring and how.
If any automation is needed, what is it? That's a very deep rathole and depends on whether the BMS is talking to other controllers or doing everything.
What needs to be logged? to throw an Alert? are there actions based on those alerts?

If all you want to do is check/set the home thermostat, see the outside temperature, and know that the sump in the basement is getting high, that's fairly easy. If you want time-of-day control of multiple HVAC zones, water pumps*, cooling towers, and maybe a boiler, that's a trifle harder . IME (which is quite old now) most of the large system vendors know what questions to ask and how to produce a working system. It may not do exactly what you want, but it'll be a starting point.

* on/off/speed control, is it actually running?, pressure in & out, maybe flow monitoring, might even have a vibration sensor. And that's just one pump.

It’s not that hard, a simple plc can do most of it with some programming. Just depends on how fancy you want to get. I designed a greenhouse EMS for big Orange many years ago. They were kicking out Wadsworth because everything in their system was proprietary, and wanted ridiculous prices for replacement parts, and were no longer building greenhouses on the stores. I simply used a two stage digital thermostat as a controller, it actually worked better than Wadsworth, as it maintained a much more consistent temperature in the greenhouse. I controlled the ridge vents, shade cloth, heaters and the exhaust fans. With that one thermostat. Every component could be got off the shelf at a nearby Grainger.

 

[petersonra]

I have seen this done using regular PLCs and HMIs, and I have done so myself for smaller systems.

There is nothing special about the control systems supplied by the big boys for this purpose.

The big thing is they have canned routines to do certain things. In modern PLCs you can create these routines once yourself so they work like you want them to work instead of how the system manufacturer thinks they should work, and then just reuse them as needed.

I will say this. If the project exceeds a few handfuls of I/O, you will want a seriously experienced engineer doing the programming. This is not something that the average electrician should be handling. It can get very messy very quickly. You also need to make sure someone is updating the drawings. This often gets forgotten and down the road no one can figure out how it works because the drawings were either never done at all, or not kept up to date. Yes, believe it or not, I have seen people try to do substantial sized projects of this type with either no drawings at all or just some half-$$$ed hand sketches in an attempt to save money. There is also the tendency to try and get contract programming on the cheap. Usually the mess that results ends up with the customer deciding to rip out the system eventually because the documentation provided (if any) is all but impossible to follow or not up to date, or the cheap work done is not up to snuff.

 

[hillbilly1]

The first one I ever worked on, was an old Walmart, this was before they went to Novar. Anyhow, the Forman told me to rip it out, they weren’t going to use it anymore. After I get nearly all of it ripped out, he came back and said “wait, they are keeping it, and we got to wire the new addition to it also!” I reverse engineered it, and was able to get it back to working along with new lighting and hvac. No wiring diagrams whatsoever!

 

[petersonra]

The first one I ever worked on, was an old Walmart, this was before they went to Novar. Anyhow, the Forman told me to rip it out, they weren’t going to use it anymore. After I get nearly all of it ripped out, he came back and said “wait, they are keeping it, and we got to wire the new addition to it also!” I reverse engineered it, and was able to get it back to working along with new lighting and hvac. No wiring diagrams whatsoever!

A lot easier to put it back together if you are the one that ripped it out.

I don't know how complicated a Walmart BMS is. I would be seriously offended if I had to try and troubleshoot something like this 5 years from now and there were no drawings or other documentation on how it is setup.

I will say there are some of these systems that you can embed at least some limited documentation into the configuration of the system so a knowledgeable person down the road can access it, which makes things much simpler to troubleshoot than having no clue at all as to what is there.

 

[zbang]

It’s not that hard, a simple plc can do most of it with some programming. Just depends on how fancy you want to get.

Well, that's it really. "BMS" in my mind usually means many devices and lots of controls. It's a matter of scope (as I tried to say at the end) and how polished you want it to be.

Or, a couple of remote control ToD thermostats and some lighting controls does not make for a "BMS". One could argue that without data logging & display, and some form of alerting, you don't have a "management system" at all, you just have some programmed devices.

 

[Tainted]

Oh my, I can't see why anyone would want to create a BMS from scratch (unless they have 20 years to do it).

Assuming you plan to use a commercially-available system (post #2), the brains for most of them are server-class computers using PCs as the management terminals. They often have proprietary hardware to connect to the field devices but may use commodity data networking gear to connect the parts.

Just spitballing some of the parts-
HMI design & graphics
Determining what field hardware gets connected for control or monitoring and how.
If any automation is needed, what is it? That's a very deep rathole and depends on whether the BMS is talking to other controllers or doing everything.
What needs to be logged? to throw an Alert? are there actions based on those alerts?

If all you want to do is check/set the home thermostat, see the outside temperature, and know that the sump in the basement is getting high, that's fairly easy. If you want time-of-day control of multiple HVAC zones, water pumps*, cooling towers, and maybe a boiler, that's a trifle harder . IME (which is quite old now) most of the large system vendors know what questions to ask and how to produce a working system. It may not do exactly what you want, but it'll be a starting point.

* on/off/speed control, is it actually running?, pressure in & out, maybe flow monitoring, might even have a vibration sensor. And that's just one pump.

I want login and be greeted with pretty pictures and diagrams of everything that's going on in the building. Basically a workstation showing temperatures, flows, tank levels, etc. Data to be sent via BACnet. Kinda like this:

 

[petersonra]

All of the SCADA and DCS suppliers can do this kind of stuff.

 

[hillbilly1]

I remember now, Walmart used Enercon energy management systems before Novar. When they first started using Novar, I went to Novar’s headquarters in Barberton, Ohio. They had a display in the showroom with “lightning” dancing all over the “EP” (executive processor, later changed to “EC”, executive controller) they said it was impervious to surges! (Just don’t put 24 vac to the com terminals, fry it every time LOL!) HVAC techs were bad to do that when troubleshooting. Replaced several because of that. Originally downloading was dial up, and would take hours!

 

[Saturn_Europa]

VT SCADA has a free version and has excellent training videos. The free version has certain limitations on communications and IO points.

C-More from Automation Direct might be an option.

 

[gadfly56]

I want login and be greeted with pretty pictures and diagrams of everything that's going on in the building. Basically a workstation showing temperatures, flows, tank levels, etc. Data to be sent via BACnet. Kinda like this:

View attachment 2567716

Very seriously, DO NOT try to home-brew your own system if this is anything like what you're trying to do. Hire Siemens or Johnson Controls or Honeywell as a sub and let them do it, unless it's one of those two-thermostats-on-a-wall jobs others have mentioned. Your question is a little like "How can I write my own version of Windows 11?"

 

[Tainted]

Very seriously, DO NOT try to home-brew your own system if this is anything like what you're trying to do. Hire Siemens or Johnson Controls or Honeywell as a sub and let them do it, unless it's one of those two-thermostats-on-a-wall jobs others have mentioned. Your question is a little like "How can I write my own version of Windows 11?"

Maybe I wasn't clear in what I meant... I meant I would like to use already made hardware and software and spec everything out myself but I don't know where to start. I want to design a BMS where the contractor can read the plans and put everything together. Kind of like I do with fire alarm system, but in this scenerio it will be a BMS.

 

[hillbilly1]

Try getting in with WiPro, they do BMS on everything from Big Orange, right down to Hooter’s.

 

[garbo]

I never done a design of a BMS (Building management system) and would like some guidance.

I've seen a BMS system where someone can login to the building network and monitor/control all sorts of mechanical equipment.

How is this typically done? What materials/wiring/connections are involved to make this work?
You can give me some examples and software/hardware y

I never done a design of a BMS (Building management system) and would like some guidance.

I've seen a BMS system where someone can login to the building network and monitor/control all sorts of mechanical equipment.

How is this typically done? What materials/wiring/connections are involved to make this work?
You can give me some examples and software/hardware you used.

 

[garbo]

Have to agree with what the way knowledgeable peop!e then myself said about building your own BSO is too big of a job to attempt to build. At the 5 million square foot hospital/ research centers, Ambutory care building that I retired from they had JCI & Siemens for BSO.In a new 12 story ambutory care building they had several techs their for what seemed like a year to get everything programmed & up running.I had great results with the full time JCI tech on campus. When I would get called in middle of the night or a weekend to troubleshoot a VFD that was down I would call him at home where he could pull the system up on his laptop and troubleshoot his controls. Had to throw out a Siemens tech out on a Sunday morning. I troubleshoot a VFD was down due to thier pressure switche being bad. He told me that he had to call in a fitter to replace a basic two wire switch. Jumped it out to get the drive working. Always received quicker & better service from JCI over hard to deal with Siemens.

 

[zbang]

I meant I would like to use already made hardware and software and spec everything out myself but I don't know where to start.

Again, depending on the size of the building/etc, that might be simple, but.... there's a lot more to it than spec'ing the sensors and outputs. The electric side could be easy- various submeters, lighting controls, maybe some solar. OTOH a lot of building systems are the HVAC, so there could be hundreds of both inputs and outputs; unless you know the control structures it's hard to know what those are and could involve a mechanical engineer to select/specify.

Then, there are the control structures and the HMI (and things like energy code compliance).

I'm not saying it's impossible, just that it's not an easy nut to crack (some vendors might have training on this).

Here's a thought experiment- spec out a system for a simple 3 BR house or for a 4-6 unit apartment block. Just thinking about it myself, there are so many questions just to get started.