The coordinated grade: a Mini-C Plus folds several DB2 zones into one control point, reads the barn through multiple inputs and drives the fan groups as one system — working with soaking rather than against it.
FanPilot Standard folds several DB2 zones into one control point: a Mini-C Plus takes over the strategy for the whole building, and a VFD module seated in one of its six slots produces the 0–10 V signal for the variable-frequency fans. The fans and the building stay as they are; what changes is how many controllers the strategy is spread across.
The difference from Basic is what the controller is allowed to think with. Multiple inputs are available — temperature, humidity, THI, light, indoor/outdoor pressure difference, water pressure, and more through the module slots — so a zone can be driven by the heat the cows are standing in rather than by one probe on one wall. Temperature, humidity and THI are built into the controller itself and need no separate sensor. Each zone carries its own setpoint, and the zones move together.
Because the same controller runs the soaking system as well, the two behave as one installation rather than as two systems that happen to share a barn. When TargetSoak is wetting a feed alley, for example, FanPilot can ease the fans back slightly so the spray is not carried onto the feed — and the pair can alternate instead of both running flat out at the same moment. That is an example of the flexibility, not a fixed rule: the point is that the coordination is set up the way the barn needs it.
Settings are made in the BARNEYE platform rather than on a panel. That is deliberate here: one strategy, several houses, changed from wherever you are.
Download the FanPilot brochureFanPilot · Basic to Advanced · English · 2 pages · 856 KB PDF
One controller, one plug-in output module, and the sensors the site actually needs. The fans, the building and the wiring out to the fans stay as they are.
The controller at the centre of this grade. It holds the ventilation strategy for every zone, reads the environmental inputs and coordinates the fan groups. Six module slots take the VFD module and whichever input modules the barn needs.
A plug-in output board — the MD-VFD-4, part CCM-01-003-004 — with four 0–10 V channels on it. It turns the zone decision into an analogue signal for the variable-frequency drives, the same signal the DB2 produces at Basic, except that it comes from inside the controller instead of from a separate enclosure.
Temperature, humidity, THI, light, indoor/outdoor pressure difference, water pressure — and whatever else the barn needs through the module slots. Sensors are supplied as required: the controller can run on its built-in readings alone, or on several external inputs at once, and a single strategy can weigh more than one at a time.
The uplink that puts the barn on the farm network. Multi-WAN and gigabit, on a DIN rail, so the platform can reach the controller and keep reaching it when one WAN drops. Without it the system still runs locally — it just stops being remote.
Basic drives fans from temperature alone; Standard adds the inputs and the coordination; Advanced gives each fan its own device. The fans themselves do not change between the three.
Air comes in through the inlets and leaves through the fans, and the climate is the difference between the two — so the inlets, the fogging line and the heaters are driven by the strategy that already runs the fans. Each one is an add-on module in a Mini-C Plus slot, bought when the barn needs it, not bundled with the grade.
| Add-on | Module | What it changes |
|---|---|---|
| Inlets | INLET · CCM-01-006-002 | Two outputs, each with open/close, an opening command and position feedback — the opening is commanded and then confirmed, not run against a timer. |
| Fogging | VSO · CCM-01-002-008, SWITCH · CCM-01-004-008 | Valve groups switch on the VSO outputs and the pump is enabled through a SWITCH relay. Line pressure comes back from the manometer, so a blocked nozzle or a dry pump shows up as a reading instead of as a wet alley. |
| Heating In development | SWITCH · CCM-01-004-008 | An enable output: the heaters run or they do not. Modulation and staging come later, and this page does not claim them. |
Ventilation leads, and the rest follows it. Each add-on joins the decision the fans are already making: the inlet takes its position from the fan stage, fogging is enabled while the fans are moving air, and the heaters come on when ventilation sits at its minimum. Fit one or fit all three — the strategy stays in one place, so the barn behaves as one system rather than as three that happen to share a roof.
The same 76 fan positions and the same control run, consolidated: one Mini-C Plus for the whole barn instead of a controller per zone, and branches that divide the fans into two groups — those along the feeding alley and those over the lying area.
Example layoutThis drawing is an example. Its basic conditions come from Live Barn and it is not an actual dairy barn — it shows how a layout is put together and must not be used as a configuration reference for any real project.Talk to us and we will prepare a solution for your barn
Four differences that show up in the barn rather than in the brochure — and the first is the reason most farms move up from Basic.
Temperature alone cannot tell a humid afternoon from a dry one. Standard weighs humidity, THI, light, pressure difference and water pressure together, and its temperature, humidity and THI readings come from the controller itself rather than from extra probes.
The goal is not a ventilation system plus a soaking system, but every powered installation in the barn under one strategy. With its expansion modules a Mini-C Plus switches, varies speed, reads multiple sensors, extends over CAN and takes execution feedback — so fans, soaking, curtains, vents, lighting, heating and fogging can be coordinated from the same controller. Ventilation is where that starts, not where it stops.
The fans along the feeding alley and the fans over the lying area do not need the same airflow, and they do not work the same hours. Each group carries its own setpoint, which is usually the difference between a comfortable average and a comfortable barn.
Settings live in the BARNEYE platform: change a ventilation curve once and apply it to the houses that should share it, from any web-enabled device.
Two part numbers carry this grade, and both are already in the catalogue. Open either for the full specification.
Send us the barn drawing and the fan schedule. We will tell you how many zones the building really needs, where the sensors should sit, and whether the site is better served by the per-fan control that Advanced adds.
Send us your barn planType a product, a system or a problem.
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