I typed this up a day or so ago in the “New to Niagara” for the noobs. Well that’s me.
Hello everyone. New to the Niagara platform. Trying to understand at what point do you transition from a graphics package like WebCTRL to Niagara?
-For Context-
We build clean rooms and dry rooms for pharmaceuticals, aerospace, and small custom compounding facilities. I don’t have a mentor to discuss this with so here I am.
Appreciate the feedback.
I don’t know if I quite understand. You can import all the images and gif files over to the file space of any Niagara station and bind those animations to objects in Niagara.
I’m wondering when would you need/want to cross over to Tridium. How large of a facility or is it based on complexity, needs/wants of customers, etc.
I still don’t know if I truly understand.
Like when would I want to use WebCTRL over Niagara?
I don’t know if there’s a specific reason. Unless the customer is requesting something that WebCTRL cannot do or an integration ALC cannot handle.
ALC corporate uses JACEs for integrations ALC cannot do. I’ve certified about 100 ALC technicians in Niagara.
The clean rooms we build can range from small 1 air handler, 1-2 electric reheats, humidifier, 2 stage condenser, up to what I just mentioned 8x. Mind you this whole “system” is stand alone. We don’t pick up the rest of the building and we have been asked to connect 15 other facilities together on one dash board. I am asking, if you work with ALC and Tridium what would be the one or two things that would push you from WebCTRL to Tridium? Is it data driven, multiple communication protocols, second campus, ect. I know there are Tridium die hards that would say a doorbell needs a jace. Just for my own knowledge.
Having worked with both (Been certified with WebCTRL since 3.0), I would choose the one to give me the most flexibility in the job I’m doing and cost.
ALC is one of the most expensive products in the market. Tridium can be do depending what you need.
Cost would really be the only driving factor here, unless there’s an integration that ALC cannot do.
My opinion is that tridium has taken over the market and as such is a go to for lots of companies. Doesn’t mean it’s bad just means that sometimes it will be given precedence where it shouldn’t b
That said, it is an excellent platform to pull together multiple protocols and products. Take it with a grain of salt I was basically raised on Niagara since I started in this business. But Niagara integrates very well to modbus lon and bacnet with a lack of property fuckery.
It is entirely dependent on context. If you have an all ALC system then yeah, use ALC. If you’re coming into a place that has been built up over years and multiple vendors, then I would say Niagara.
Even then in something like a distech system which plays very nicely with Niagara, I’d say go Niagara from the start.
There are some extremely helpful drivers written for Niagara that can take over legacy stuff you wouldn’t be able to deal with over pure bacnet.
It isn’t perfect. Pretending like it’s open is silly. And advances in tech may render this idea obsolete as time goes on.