AutomatedBuildings.com Interview

Luis Melgares is a Regional Sales Manager for the controls division of Neptronic. He is responsible for the US and Latin America as well as OEM markets.

Neptronic Update

Neptronic has been around for over 35 years and is recognized worldwide for their humidifiers, electric heaters, actuators, actuated valves and intelligent controllers.

Melgares: Hi Ken, I’m glad that you ask that question. Neptronic has been around for over 35 years and is recognized worldwide for their humidifiers, electric heaters, actuators, actuated valves and intelligent controllers. Neptronic is also committed to full implementation of the open BACnet protocol in our controls to provide our customers with greater interoperability. All our BACnet Application Specific Controllers (B-ASC) products are BTL listed, which assures a greater level of commitment and peace of mind.

Sinclair: You mentioned interoperability. What are some of the things you do to ensure interoperability?

Melgares: Other than our own rigorous testing and that our products are BTL listed, we also participate in the annual PlugFest organized by BACnet International. I personally attended PlugFest 2012 and I was extremely satisfied with the results. We connected with various products from over 10 different manufacturers from different industries. We were all professionals present at the PlugFest with a common goal – interoperability. What was exceptionally gratifying was receiving many positive comments from our peers on the speed of communication, stability on the network and as well as our excellent use of the BACnet protocol.

Melgares: We understand that our customers in the field need products that are easy to use and save them time and money. During development we apply the plug & play philosophy, which helped us develop features such as two MAC address configuration methods, auto device instance configuration, auto baud rate detection, copy and paste configuration, and device locator display.

Sinclair: Can you give me an example of where interoperability and Neptronic played an important role?

Melgares: Absolutely. A total of 18,000 Neptronic Fan Coil BACnet Controllers were installed at the world’s largest women's university in Saudi Arabia – Princess Noura University. The university is composed of 32 campuses in a self-contained higher education city, which can accommodate 40,000 students and 12,000 employees. What’s impressive is not only communicating 18,000 Neptronic controllers on a BACnet network, but also being integrated by the Johnson Controls system.

[an error occurred while processing this directive]Sinclair: What does the future hold?

Melgares: We are committed to research and development, and continuously survey the market to ensure our customers get products they really need to get the job done. We’re always open to hear the needs our industry. The industry is changing, in a positive way, and Neptronic will be at the cutting edge of new technologies.

About Neptronics

Overview
Founded in 1976, Neptronic is a private corporation that design, manufacture and distribute products for the HVAC industry. Neptronic product line includes intelligent controllers, humidifiers, electric heaters as well as electronic damper actuators and actuated valves. Neptronic products are designed and manufactured by over 250 dedicated employees at its 7,500 m2 (80,000 ft2) state-of-the-art facility located in Montreal, Canada.

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