In the property sheet of a LonNetwork, the Lon Comm Config container holds properties needed to configure the communication stack for a single Lonworks connection.

Typically, you leave all Lon Comm Config properties at default values, as shown in Figure 8. The exception is when you have multiple LonNetworks (physical Lon ports), where each LonNetwork must have a unique Device Name (LON1, LON2, etc.).

Enabling Link Debug will show the raw byte data for messages from/to the Neuron. Note that you can also enable link debug from the “Spy” page access of the station (e.g. right-click station: SpylogSetup, enable Trace on lon1).Refer to the LonWorks Host Application Programmer’s Guide (Appendix C), for message header meaning (first 16 bytes). Refer also to the Neuron C Data Book (Appendixes A and B), for definition of LonTalk messages.

Lon Comm Config timers and retry count are used on outgoing messages for all network management messages, all poll messages, and unbound NV updates messages from the station.

Sometimes, certain Lon devices may process Lon messages “slower than normal,” resulting in errors when you do commissioning or binding operations--where the commission or bind reports as failed. You can confirm such problems by using the Lon Utilities Manager (afterwards) and running a verify report. The verify report will list the inconsistencies between the bindings on the devices, and the list of bindings that Niagara's LON network management determines that they should have.In an example with a Lon network containing such “slow responding” devices, operation may improve with Lon Comm parameters adjusted upwards to:

In this case, it may also be necessary to adjust “link descriptors” under the Lon Netmgmt container from default values. See Link descriptor notes.