Viconics VWG-50 (Classic ZigBee) Design Consideration and Setup Guide User Manual
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7 | VWG-50-Setup Guide
A maximum of 50 networkable controllers can be supported by a single VWG. Database creation and
configuration is easily made using a Viconics software appliance that communicates with the VWG.
B
ASIC
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NITIAL
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ESIGN AND
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EPLOYMENT
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ONSIDERATION
IMPORTANT: It is HIGHLY recommended that you do a proper field survey with the
Viconics survey tools to establish connectivity limitations and architecture layout on ALL
job sites considered for deployment with the Viconics wireless controller products. Please
refer to the following manual for the survey procedures and tool usage: MAN VWG-
SURVEY-Exx.
Please note that the following is well covered in the field survey tool procedure manual. A
quick summary is provided here as a reference.
The Viconics wireless survey tools are intended to verify and validate the deployment and
use of the Viconics wireless controllers on a potential job site.
The survey tool will display a numerical percentage value on the LCD screen which
represents the wireless network Zigbee™ ™™ RSSI dBi value (Receiving Signal Strength
Indicator).
Any value from 10 to 100% indicates good Zigbee™ connectivity.
Any value below 10% “may” indicate that an extra Router VRP 5000W1000W
may need to be installed.
Knowing and understanding the 6A / 5H rule of Zigbee™ and how to cover orphan
nodes!!!
Zigbee™ is a standard which is suitable for wireless sensor and controller networks. In
Zigbee™ ™, a device / node / controller is said to join a network if it can obtain a Zigbee™
network address from a parent device. This Zigbee™ address is a value which is NOT
initially exposed or available for the integrator to see.
Devices / nodes / controllers can calculate and assign addresses for their surrounding
devices by a distributed address assignment scheme. This assignment is flexible, but it
does somewhat restricts the number of attached devices and the possible depth of the
said network for any given device on the network.
Zigbee™ supports three kinds of networks type: star, tree, and mesh networks. The
Zigbee™ coordinator ( In our case, this is the VWG with the wireless communication card
) is responsible for initializing, maintaining, and controlling the network.
A star network has a coordinator with devices directly connecting to the
coordinator.
A tree and mesh networks, devices can communicate with each other in a multi-
hop fashion.
The network is formed by one Zigbee™ coordinator and multiple Zigbee™ routers. A
device can join a network as an end device by the associating with the coordinator or a
router.