NEW BERLIN, Wis. - ABB has announced that its ACH550 drive for HVAC applications is the first drive, to date, to be BACnet Testing Laboratories (BTL) approved and listed. BTL is an independent lab that tests devices for conformance to the BACnet standard.

"We are honored to have an independent testing organization provide this stamp of approval," said Jeff Miller, HVAC sales manager. "Our internal R&D work has been to build into these drives this final piece of serial communications, and to eliminate, for the first time, the expense and challenges of hardware and gateways. BACnet replaces those with one language, able to work in real time, anywhere."

Officially, BTL has listed the ACH550 as a BACnet Application Specific Controller (B-ASC).

"This gives an end user a very high degree of confidence that the ACH550 will inter-operate with other BTL-listed devices," noted Mike Olson, manager, HVAC applications, for ABB.

The controller also complies with the ANSI/ASHRAE Standard 135-2004, Olson said. The ABB drive features a standard connection that is MS/TP, RS485-based, and it supports all BIBBs defined by the BACnet standard profile for an Application Specific Controller, he said.

The listing is available for review and reference at the main BTL page http://bacnetassociation.org/btl/default.htm.

Publication date: 06/20/2005