Louis Alberto Santiago

US Patent:

6405103, Jun 11, 2002

Filed:

Dec 18, 1998

Appl. No.:

09/216245

Inventors:

Thomas M. Ryan - Bushkill PA
James M. Ryan - Fairfax VA
Louis A. Santiago - Bushkill PA

Assignee:

Comfort Systems, Inc. - E. Stroudsburg PA

International Classification:

G05B 1300

US Classification:

700275, 700 2, 700 83, 700 19, 707200

Abstract:

Disclosed is a system for controlling appliances of at least one building, each appliance being associated with a local controller and having a control input and at least one control point. The system includes a central processor computer having an operator interface and an equipment interface, a network connected to the equipment interface and having a plurality of nodes for communicating with each of the appliances, a log file being stored with respective area, description, and address fields containing corresponding data of the control points. A control program in the computer feeds the equipment interface to drive the control inputs of the appliances in response to a database, the database being populated from a tagname dictionary. A conversion program produces the tagname dictionary as a transfer file, the program including instructions for accessing the area, description, and address fields of the log file, generating for each point a tagname as a concatenation of the area and description fields, and an item including contents of the address field, and storing the tagnames and associated items with the header in the transfer file, whereby the system drives the control inputs of the appliances in response to the control point data of the log file. The conversion program can include a mode selector for directing conditional, unconditional and test modes of a utility process populating the database.