1.1 What NW8000 Is
1.1 What NW8000 Is
In this lesson: you will be able to explain, in one sentence, what the NW8000 does and where it sits in a building system.
What the NW8000 is for
Network 8000 is a family of building-automation controllers — Microzones and similar — originally from Schneider and Barber-Colman. They run the heating, cooling, and ventilation in a building, and they talk to each other over a serial wire called an RS-485 bus, using an older protocol called ASD.
The problem is that those controllers are decades old, and there is no modern way to see or manage them. That is what the NW8000 solves.
The NW8000 is a small gateway that connects to that RS-485 bus, understands the old ASD protocol, and gives you a clean, modern web interface in any browser. It also exposes the same data over BACnet and Modbus, so a building management system can read it too.
A few things to keep in mind as an operator
- The NW8000 is a window and a control point — the actual control logic still runs in the controllers.
- It does not do its own alarming.
- It talks to the controllers at a fixed speed on the bus, so there is nothing to tune there.
In one line: the NW8000 lets you see and adjust your legacy Network 8000 system from a web browser.
Key points
- NW8000 is a gateway between a legacy RS-485 / ASD bus of Network 8000 controllers and a modern web browser.
- It also exposes the same data over BACnet and Modbus for a building management system.
- The control logic runs in the controllers, not in the gateway.
- The gateway generates no alarms of its own.
- The bus speed is fixed — there is nothing to tune.
Check your understanding
- What does the NW8000 connect to on one side, and what does it provide on the other?
- True/False: the NW8000 runs the control logic itself.
- Does the NW8000 generate its own alarms?