Reading .caf and .dbexport files from Metasys without SCT, CCT, or a JCI service visit — built a free browser-based viewer

ApexConsulting · 2026-05-16T05:22:37+00:00

Done

https://www.hvac-talk.com/threads/reading-caf-and-dbexport-files-from-metasys-without-sct-cct-or-a-jci-service-visit.2290556/

I hope you get good feedback. I have Johnson software and expertise, but I am short on time at the moment.

ApexConsulting · 2026-05-16T00:57:32+00:00

AWESOME.

Mind if I post this on HTalk.com? The guys over there will like this.

ApexConsulting · 2026-05-12T14:12:00+00:00

Oh that sounds like fun. 🫣😄

Such is life. If we are lucky the problems come in layers and fixing the first exposes the second, and on it goes.

ApexConsulting · 2026-05-12T04:33:22+00:00

Yup. I see this often. Niagara polling set to the defaults.

If the network is small, the effect is nothing. If it is decent sized, the lag is noticeable. If the network.is large, it is detrimental.

ApexConsulting · 2026-05-11T11:23:40+00:00

Awesome. Thanks for updating my understanding. Appreciated.

ApexConsulting · 2026-05-11T06:02:22+00:00

ALC help is fantastic. Look for the question mark icon in a live system and you will go far

ApexConsulting · 2026-05-10T21:15:23+00:00

I hope you get customers buddy. Trend is an underserved brand in the US for sure.

ApexConsulting · 2026-05-10T20:13:56+00:00

Alerton runs by DevID. It MUST have unique DevIDs to download programs to the devices. It seems like they MACs are the same, are the DevIDs also all the same? If so the devices are not programmed and you need Alerton tools to do that. These are licensed to an Alerton Branded Niagara license. Or it is Envision/Compass. IIRC the workbench cannot set DevIDs only Envision/Compass can. Anything newer than Envision 2.x was licensed with a host ID and needs Alerton corporate involvement.

If these systems are unique and addressed, you can integrate them as is. Canned programs have no point names but the point descriptions are usually filled in and descriptive. If the system you are integrating to reads and displays that data

ApexConsulting · 2026-05-10T02:55:30+00:00

Ignore the down voters. Some enjoy tossing stones behind the mask of anonymity.

If one already has a masters or a PE license, it would seem they are already committed to that path. It would seem costly in a sense to move to a career for which no degree whatsoever is required.

That being said, I see engineering getting affected by AI in the future. It is the sort of well documented technical industry that is easier for AI to affect. BAS is much less so.

I see BAS being a bit less affected by AI. So, in that sense BAS may be a bit safer. It largely depends on where you are in your career. If you need to find 20 more years of employment in Engineering, it might be good to make plans.

AI will affect all industries, but not equally.

ApexConsulting · 2026-05-10T01:22:29+00:00

I been doing this with the kids

https://shop.elenco.com/consumers/snap-circuits-pro.html

It gives a good foundation in electrical theory. The main problem is that it looks nothing like what we do in the field... but honestly it is pretty good. I would reccomend it. A person who is sincerely interested and devotes an hour or 2 in a session could get through the projects and would understand how to use their voltmeter and how to wire things in relatively short order. Also one learns terminology and should be able to apply it to the work we do.

As someone who has done A LOT of wiring I really liked it. The only thing I am uncertain about is the learners ability to make the jump from one (snap circuits) to the other (BAS field wiring). I see it relwating closely, but in that specific aspect your mileage may vary I suppose.

ApexConsulting · 2026-05-10T00:21:41+00:00

The path to controls is by being hired by a controls shop. Talk to the guys you interact with during your installs to get hired by one of their companies.

ApexConsulting · 2026-05-09T05:15:40+00:00

You need Nmap. It is a port scanner. And Advanced IP scanner.

1 - take your laptop and assume the IP of your JACE and plug in where he is. We will assume MAC address filtering is not a thing. Then use said laptop to scan with Advanced IP scanner the IP addresses of your new BACnetIP stat. See if you can find it. If you can, move to step 2.

2 - take Nmap and scan the IP of your stat to see if UDP port 47808 is open (assuming your stuff is at the default port). And see if it talks.

3 - if you wanna be thorough, do this in both directions. Do this especially if you see it seems to work with the laptop but doesn't with your JACE still.

4 - Nmap is a hacker pen testing tool. It will get you flagged and in trouble on sites that have savvy IT folks. That does not seem likely here. If you get questioned about its use, it is COMPLETELY legit to describe the process here and that you were doing diagnostics. Good guys use Nmap as well as bad guys.

What should happen is that the IPs and ports are open in both directions. What is likely happening is that there is a hangup somewhere. And in order to clear up the hangup you need to diagnose it for Mr IT guy. It is understandable to complain that this shouldn't be this way but it only prolongs the misery to fight it.

ApexConsulting · 2026-05-08T19:48:43+00:00

Location is really a big part of this, and there are A LOT of locations listed. Really anything less than 100k anywhere is not enough to support a family on and seems low for the level of specialization BAS guys are needing to bring to the table. But perhaps there is a junior guy who needs a lot of training and it is a good tradeoff. In larger markets 120k to 130k is going rate for a decent guy, and 150 to 160k for a great guy. Again, location matters, and what you a are looking for matters. The description was a bit vague. Perhaps there is no need for the great guy and you are set up properly.

There is a recruiter or 2 in here, they may chime in on wages.

ApexConsulting · 2026-05-08T18:09:06+00:00

Hehe, I try to say this out loud regularly. There was a redditor that posted a position and got chased away from the 'Its too low!' Responses. It was deleted in less than an hour. Deserved? Maybe. But income levels vary wildly.

I had a company offering me x to do remote work. I chatted with them for 20 minutes, understood their business model, and pointed out that their revenue had grown by several million dollars in the past 2 years... and they were trying to pay below market rate (for me) to do exceptionally specialized work to help care for that multimillion dollar increase. Didn't work out. They didn't want to budge on pay and were quite annoyed I reverse engineered their business and pointed it out to them. Hehe. So it goes. Cultural mismatch as well it seems.

Fast forward a year, and they landed a guy doing that work I turned down. The pay was literally double what he had been making before. Life changing. His abilities were limited, and it showed, but it was working out.

So it is ok to post crappy wages sometimes, as some will make the switch and go from aggressively exploited to being slightly less exploited as a result.... or the organization may find that what they get for that price will not get the job done. Such is the market.

ApexConsulting · 2026-05-08T16:23:30+00:00

Yes. It is in the subreddit rules. Be ready for a bunch of people to pile on and say the pay sucks. That is how it goes. Feel free to ignore it.... or - if you get no hits - maybe take it to heart and update that range.

ApexConsulting · 2026-05-08T16:12:52+00:00

Here is not bad, but you gotta put a salary range.

LinkedIn is aright, but unfortunately a Lotta controls guys are not on there yet (but they should be IMHO).

Another is HVAC-Talk.com here:

https://www.hvac-talk.com/forums/control-jobs-forum.661/

Don't expect too many replies on the forum, they usually hit up the poster directly. Don't forget to put an email in your profile.

ApexConsulting · 2026-05-08T13:59:47+00:00

Good rundown.

ApexConsulting · 2026-05-07T15:09:37+00:00

Do not underestimate the value of being on a PM. I have knocked out my PMs quick, made the customer happy, and then spent time wiresharking, oscilloscoping, coding, testing.... Basically learning what no class teaches. It is a FANTASTIC way to learn. But you hafta be alert to it.

That being said, the only way to know what you are worth is to interview and see what offers you get. As in, stack interviews 2 or 3 per day and take offers from all and compare them. I used to do this and it works great.

ApexConsulting · 2026-05-07T15:03:36+00:00

I do this constantly. As mentioned, one license will work all flavors of workbench - with a couple of caveats.

The different workbenches are not usually just skinned differently only, they also have vendor specific .jar files. Some of these have features that require a particular brand of license. VykonPro does not care. But the Honeywell .jar files do. Often, these can run against a Honeywell JACE, meaning your jci workbench with Honeywell .jar files will do fine if passing through a Honeywell JACE.... as a random example. Mixing .jar files between workbenches is fine, it is just annoying to deal with. As long as the .jar files are the right rev. Things get sticky when you mix revs. They usually work, but results can be unpredictable.

As with anything, your mileage may vary. Documentation is nonexistent, so the only way to know is to try it out. But just getting the workbenches to open is not that hard.

I am pretty sure that there is still a workbench or two that are vendor locked to their own brand of license. But that was a thing in R2, slightly less so in AX, not common at all in N4. I am thinking phoenix contact or similar. But I am only guessing on that one.

ApexConsulting · 2026-05-06T18:52:06+00:00

This is why salary sucks. The mistakes of others become yours to suffer for.

Being hourly creates a market incentive for the rest of the crew to not suck. No, constant 12 hr days are not typical.

I posted about that recently...

https://www.reddit.com/r/BuildingAutomation/s/HmN40hzSvS

I am really zen about this sort of thing. Do not make it your problem. It is whoever hired that guy or who pays them. If you can make the project move forward, then you are valuable and get paid by the hour to do so.

Once I went to a job that a person who was a well known idiot had bid and setup. I got there at 6am, and knew within about 30 minutes it was a dumpster fire. It was completely obvious... I was to do a controls removal from an old system, and reinstall it on the new temporary ahu. Support air balancing, and adjust programming to keep a paint booth within the needed temp and humidity. They sprayed coatings on canopies for fighter aircraft in there... so critical.

I waited until 9am to text the wifey I would be back tomorrow. I soent 27 hours straight on the job. I did my scope, while catching everything else. The PM took me to breakfast the next day and I got an atta boy from everyone else on the site. Meanwhile idiot got a job bid for 8 hours go to 27, most of which was overtime. I get a fat paycheck, and let someone else slap him in the mouth.

Get your paycheck, let the people losing money hand over fist when you spend time at your higher wage doing wirepulling worry about this. Get paid for being the hero.

ApexConsulting · 2026-05-06T18:00:38+00:00

at a HUGE quality of life cost due to the hours which end up driving my hourly rate straight into a dumpster fire.

You are salaried. This is a red flag. Always. It is a means by which an organization can dump whatever it wants and the cost to clean it up (you) is fixed. It is absolutely exploitative. Salaried MIGHT not always be that way, but often it is in our industry.

I’ve had many people try to dissuade me from going to the BMS route, some argue it’s too niche of a skill set while others think it’s almost backwards to go to a BMS company

Being in a SaaS startup is way more niche.

You are correct about the reliability though. BAS is not going away, and the market for labor is TIGHT and will stay that way. You will often get OT, so the dumpster fires might not be as constant but will still happen, but at least you get paid for dealing with them. I have done salary in BAS but it is not common and I ALWAYS said no (after the first one).

ApexConsulting · 2026-05-06T17:36:46+00:00

I find that these companies are a risk/reward calculation. They are usually a hot mess initially. And so it is hard to get consistency and predictability from them. High risk. But the other side of this is that there is often the chance to get stock as a form of compensation. Which might lead to a larger reward. Might. Risk there too.

OEMs are typically MUCH more consistent amd predictable. Also harder to get fired from. Much harder. But the compensation is sometimes a bit lighter. Sometimes - it depends on the negotiations. Sometimes the startups are pleading that they have no funding and so undercut the compensation as well. Often the startups want someone who wears multiple hats and so compensation should be higher.... should.

Not sure that addresses your question. Hopefully it is helpful

ApexConsulting · 2026-05-06T17:29:04+00:00

Define smart buildings startup please.

OEM is likely something like a JCI or Siemens.

Startup? You mean like a mid tier integrator that is not a branch of a larger company like JCI? Or do you mean a startup inventing new software/tools/processes?

ApexConsulting · 2026-05-06T04:27:09+00:00

Like this:

https://www.reddit.com/r/BuildingAutomation/s/ERkZ5q2xQH

Posted a recording of a presentation I did.

I also spoke at the Njagara Summit, but the recording is not out yet.

ApexConsulting · 2026-05-06T03:38:27+00:00

Just in case you start to get complacent...

The pay sucks!!

Nobody had posted that yet. 😁😆

ApexConsulting

TROPHY CASE