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[Plugin] Skelion (solar, shadows)

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  • H Offline
    HANERGY
    last edited by 22 Jul 2015, 14:24

    Thanks Juju!
    Sorry but I haven't been very precise earlier...
    I'm already using Skelion but I can't find out how to create the shading area and leave it empty when using the automatic option "insert solar component" also I believe this is not an option on the trial version, right?

    Many thanks

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    • E Offline
      emerkel
      last edited by 24 Jul 2015, 18:02

      The "Sunny Area" (moon icon) tool doesn't seem to work on meshes (non-planar) surfaces. I am doing something wrong does it not support meshes? If the latter are there any plans to make this available? Thanks!

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      • S Offline
        Sminky
        last edited by 5 Aug 2015, 01:42

        Hi, I have been happily using skelion and pvsyst for some time and it's a powerful couple.
        In the version log of the latest version of pvsyst, it finally says that it's now able to import shading objects from helios. So now I was wondering, is it possible to make it work for skelion?
        Thanks for your time.

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        • J Offline
          juju
          last edited by 5 Aug 2015, 07:10

          @sminky said:

          Hi, I have been happily using skelion and pvsyst for some time and it's a powerful couple.
          In the version log of the latest version of pvsyst, it finally says that it's now able to import shading objects from helios. So now I was wondering, is it possible to make it work for skelion?
          Thanks for your time.

          link for "pvsyst"?

          Save the Earth, it's the only planet with chocolate.

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          • S Offline
            Sminky
            last edited by 7 Aug 2015, 00:35

            Sorry, what do you mean by link for pvsyst?

            In skelion is already present an export tool for pvsyst but the exported objects that are not solar modules were not counted by pvsyst for the shadings.
            The last version log of pvsyst says that it now should be possible to read these shading objects but when I tried doing it with skelion, it didn't work. So, maybe, there is a little work to do on skelion side to make it happen. I don't know if this work with other software so I am not sure it's skelion fault, that's why I was asking if it's possible.

            This is the link to the change log I was talking about
            http://www.pvsyst.com/en/software/software-development

            Best regards

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            • J Offline
              Juantxo
              last edited by 19 Oct 2015, 15:36

              Last version of Skelion has been released, with a nice solar tracking feature, for one and two axis solar trackers:

              [flash=560,349:lp902fjt]http://www.youtube.com/v/W8DdJ2VpgO0?version=3&hl=en_US[/flash:lp902fjt]

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              • A Offline
                AirWindSolar
                last edited by 3 Nov 2015, 21:18

                OK, testing with the free version again.

                Still having the problem of it hanging when I have it insert modules more than once in a model. (We often have multiple revisions and/or add a surface, fill it, then draw out another surface if needed for the desired size, so inserting multiple times is a necessity for me.
                We use a railless racking system that allows pretty much any mix of orientations. Often this means we'll have a combination of portrait and landscape rows to best fill the available space. It would be great to have something that can effectively tessellate the available space as efficiently as possible using both orientations and accounting for a minimum amount of solar access for each module. (i.e. generally no shade at all between 0900-1600 year round, though this changes for some arrays)
                Get rid of that damn monolog box that I have to acknowledge at every startup until I install the latest version. It's not going to be my priority when I'm swamped with design jobs and is pretty much the reason I've uninstalled Skelion twice instead of buying the Pro version. I'm not inclined to pay for childish "PAY ATTENTION TO ME!" tactics over a non-critical update. Use something like that if it's about to format my backup drive, not because I might be missing out on a spelling correction somewhere.

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                • A Offline
                  AirWindSolar
                  last edited by 16 Nov 2015, 19:36

                  A corollary to the "no shade 0900-1600 year 'round" would be that I generally end up tracing that out by hand. The ability to do "sunny area" for a user defined list of dates/times throughout the year would be very helpful and well worth the purchase price for me. The list I would most likely use would be 26 iterations, but it generally ends up running only for a chimney (i.e. a simple box) or two casting shadows on a single plane, so even running 30 iterations of the current script takes less than 5 minutes for me.

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                  • J Offline
                    Juantxo
                    last edited by 19 Nov 2015, 05:53

                    Recommended iterations are 1-3, as you can read just on the left of the text box.
                    Nobody needs 30 iterations so use 1,2 or 3 iterations. Remember to check join shadows radio button also.

                    Any error you can reproduce please email to support@skelion.com telling the steps to reproduce the error, Skelion version, SketchUp version and OS version.

                    About Skelion 519 versus 518, there are a lot of changes and it is the work of several months. If the message appears it is because update is critical. Also I recommend you to update SketchUp each year.

                    In the above post you can see the new solar tracking feature, only one of the changes that have skelion 519.

                    Best regards

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                    • L Offline
                      LeandroSouza
                      last edited by 16 Aug 2016, 18:23

                      Hello!I am new around. Can we somehow use some skelion function to place PV panels automatically away from shades? Or do we have to do it manually instead? Cheers!

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                      • L Offline
                        LeandroSouza
                        last edited by 16 Aug 2016, 20:55

                        Hello! Can I somehow see my PV panel losses (or not gain) due to orientation (some rooftops have angles that are not that simple to analyse)? E.g.: I want to fullfill a rooftop with 50 panels and checkout which are the ten among them that have the best yield. Thank you!

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                        • J Offline
                          Juantxo
                          last edited by 19 Aug 2016, 15:39

                          Watch insert solar panels video and and SOF plots video please.

                          Link Preview Image
                          Training. SketchUp Skelion solar design plugin renewable energy.

                          Skelion tutorial.

                          favicon

                          (skelion.com)

                          Best regards

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                          • S Offline
                            sam24sk
                            last edited by 3 Oct 2016, 09:23

                            Hi All,

                            Currently trialling Skelion however I'm having some trouble working out the shading losses calculation within the 'basic report' of Skelion. The report shows 'general total' shading losses of 0.7% which appear to be calculated from the average of the shading losses from each module from the array, which seems to make sense. However, the basic report also shows a list of monthly average shading losses ranging from 0.13%-5.49% which would then work out to annual average of 1.6%, which clearly doesn't correspond to the 'general total' figure.

                            I am struggling to understand the relationship between the two data, and therefore unable to justify the results in the analysis for my client. Is there a way to find out how these figures are calculated in the software? Are the 'general total' calculation losses taken using total annual daylight or using daylight from a single day of the year? I am also wondering whether the 'general total' losses calculation takes account of varying daylight hours as the year progresses, but perhaps the monthly calculation does not? I'm probably barking up the wrong tree and there is a simpler answer to be found here. Can anybody please explain the difference?

                            Any help much appreciated. Thanks

                            Sam,
                            UK
                            Shading losses.png

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                            • S Offline
                              silvi_nmss
                              last edited by 4 Oct 2016, 07:24

                              Hi...
                              Can I enter meteorological data manually in skelion?? I use the data from NASA for my location (Indonesia)
                              Thanks.

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                              • J Offline
                                Juantxo
                                last edited by 4 Oct 2016, 13:04

                                You can enter any file with NREL TMY3 format.
                                In future versions we will add a tool to create synthetic hourly values from monthly values.
                                Meteo data is only used to calculate shading losses (radiation that arrives to the panel taking into account shadows).
                                Yield is calculated with PVWATTS and PVGIS and meteo data used to calculate shading losses in skelion is not related.

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                                • T Offline
                                  tald311
                                  last edited by 16 Nov 2016, 15:33

                                  Greetings,

                                  I am having issues getting the Relief terrain to import. I have tried it on both SU 2016 and 2017. I use the location tool to geo-locate and then Relief but the window hangs and just continues to process without importing any data.

                                  I have tried this both at home (no firewall) and work (we have a firewall - but we checked it to make sure it was not being blocked).

                                  Any suggestions?

                                  Thanks
                                  Daniel

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                                  • P Offline
                                    phunter10
                                    last edited by 3 Mar 2017, 12:45

                                    Hi Juantxo,

                                    We are also having the same problem as tald311 in regards to the relief feature. Is this no longer supported in the latest sketch version of 2016 onwards?

                                    best,

                                    PH

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                                    • P Offline
                                      phunter10
                                      last edited by 3 Mar 2017, 14:30

                                      hi Juantxo,

                                      Is relief feature not supported in the latest version of sketch up 2016-2017? We are trying to capture part of the terrain over cave creek Arizona.

                                      Regards,

                                      PH

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                                      • J Offline
                                        Juantxo
                                        last edited by 5 Mar 2017, 17:18

                                        Just update to skelion 521. Some address changed and relief tool stop working. It is fixed in 521.

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                                        • S Offline
                                          Smexystef
                                          last edited by 23 Feb 2018, 13:26

                                          Hi,

                                          When I place panels their borders (edges) look white in a certain perspective. We've gotten clients who've asked why the panels had a white border while we offered them full black panels. How can we avoid this?

                                          https://i.imgur.com/NgdKzqN.jpg

                                          Also, is Skelion still being worked on? Last update seems to be almost a year ago.

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