[Plugin] Skelion (solar, shadows)

VeeDub

Hello

I'm new to Skelion and I'm trying to work out how to use it.

At the moment I'm trying to understand how to set True North. There is a short video on the Skelion site, but I didn't find that helpful.

According to the user guide (5.1), my interpretation of the instructions is that the orange axis is supposed to line up with the green axis. In my test site, that instruction doesn't make sense to me as the orange axis seems to be at the correct alignment (or very close to), while the green axis is almost aligned south.

Are there any other tutorial / training info that is worth having a look at?

Thanks
VW

kaiyer

Skelion is a great tool. However, I've upgraded to SKetchup 2015 Pro and Skelion v.5.1.7 fails at startup even in the free mode. Anyone in the forum who has Skelion working with Sketchup 2015 Pro?

bnwitt

I have been a Skelion user since it was a for purchase software product. I have been happy with the product as one of several tools for getting my work done and I had no need to upgrade to the new $200 annual lease product. Frankly, IMHO, Skelion Is too simple to do the whole job of Solar design compared to other software options and is just not worth a $200 a year renewal fee.

Unfortunately the creator of the software set it up with an annoying popup and internet browser window which opens every time he updates the software and you open Sketchup. The other day I updated to the latest version just to make the annoying pop up go away and bam! My professional version license and the tools that come with it disappear and I get a pop up that says I need to pay $200 to get my license back. I email Juan and ask him what's up, and he tells me I have to pay $200 to be authorized again. I email him several more times and ask if I can just reload the old version I supposedly own and get reauthorized so I can get back to work and he stops answering my emails. Evidently the man wants some money and if I don't agree to pay I can go pound sand.

Well in America we call that extortion. I didn't buy the software as a lease product I bought it as an ownership product. Imagine if the manufacturer of your automobile from which you purchased your vehicle remotely locked out your ignition of that paid for vehicle and then when contacted said “You need to start paying us an annual fee to keep driving that car.” You’d probably be just as ticked off as I am. IMHO the creator of Skelion has become a money grubber who doesn't live up to his own sales contracts.

So, this situation forced me to get off my rear end and do some comparison shopping in the PV design software market. I was happy to find that there are many more options for a commercial designer like myself which are much better than Skelion.

After a lot of analysis I have become a Helioscope user. I personally don't like leased software but I decided that if I am going to pay a recurring fee for PV software, it is going to be for a product that has real value and really does the complete job of PV design and does it easily. Helioscope is easy to use intuitive and will definitely save me major man hours this year paying for it self many times over. I now realize Skelion is an amateur hour product and given my personal experience and the multiple posts for help with Skelion’s user interface in this forum alone, it is clear it has been costing me value time in my work day.

So, my message to other professional PV designers is don't waste your time on Skelion which I now know to be just a first grade pencil type of software product with too few benefits to justify the now ridiculous annual cost when you can spend a little more money on something like Helioscope and get more work done a lot faster. What used to take me hours in Skelion is now done in minutes in Helioscope and many more design tasks are completed in Helioscope automatically which Skelion isn't even capable of performing . You can even get a free 30 day trial period with Helioscope so check it out if you are a serious PV Designer who needs a serious tool:

http://www.folsomlabs.com/

BW

kmullin

@juantxo said:

PVSYST exporter is not yest in manual but you can export pressing pvsyst icon: [attachment=0:7gexlda0]pvsyst_icon.JPG[/attachment:7gexlda0].
Buildings does not project shadows over solar panels. They are working to fix that. But size and position of solar panels are right.

Has any progress been made on buildings and other objects being able to project shadows?

taranraj123

Hey @Juantxo has there been any update on the PVsyst shadows issue?

I'm trying to create a Helios 3D file from Sketchup using the Skelion toolbar. The tool works great but as you mentioned none of the obstructions are imported as shadow producing objects. Is there a timeline on when there will be a fix for this?

Thanks!!

Juantxo

I don't know. You should ask PVSYST team.

Smexystef

Where can we see the update logs? version history?

Also, there's a very irritating graphical glitch if you move solar panels manually, both in sketchup as in exported/printed projects, as seen here:

can you fix this?

Juantxo

Go to plugins foder and there skelion folder. Read change.log to see the changes.

About the image, is not a glitch. If you have 2 faces coplanar, SketchUp shows both textures.
Give some depth to your panels and then the face of the panel won't be coplanar to roof face.

emerkel

Curious if there is any functionality on non-planar surfaces to set criteria for slope. In other words, when placing on a non-planar surface, it will not place components that would cause the component's slope to be greater than some value either in the direction of sheds or in the lateral direction. If not is there any plans for this function? It would be extremely handy for larger scale ground mount systems.

Juantxo

I not sure what are you talking... You can set tilt and azimuth of the components. You can choose also 3 different ways to insert the components in non-planar.
Please, watch the video tutorials at http://www.youtube.com/skelion

emerkel

Yes, the pitch of the component (modules themselves) are entered in the Skelion prompt. What I'm referring to is the slope of the terrain the components are being placed on, for example placing a table on a hill that slopes 10 degrees to the south. Realistically, racking systems can only be installed on terrain that is within a certain criteria of slope. This isn't a huge issue for simple terrain but for more complex terrain, a particular mesh may slope in the direction of the azimuth and in the lateral direction (side to side). There are practical limits on both of these, generally about 20 degrees in the direction of the azimuth (following the sheds) and about 5-10 degrees side to side. This all depends on the racking mfg but I'm curious if there's any functionality to set criteria for this in Skelion or if there are any plans to add it. I've also emailed the question to j.pons at skelion.

Froedem

Hi,

I'm using skelion for a while now (without any issues) but have been suffering some problems with my regular shadow analysis in sketchup that might be caused by the skelion plugin. In most cases my objects disappear for certain periods a day (while using the shadow slider). This differs a bit from the orientation of the object but it's rather severe. Is this a known bug of the skelion or sketchup 2015 software? Also I would like to know whether this can cause accuracy issues with my skelion shawdow derating calculations?

Cheers

Juantxo

Obects disappear: Not skelion related, is camera clipping. Change from parallel view to perspective view and problem is solved.
Read about here:
http://help.sketchup.com/en/article/36261

Camera clipping problem does not affect shading derate calculations

Froedem

Tried all that already but it has nothing to do with zooming or anything. It's just when I use the shadow function everything just disappears during a certain time of the day. The rest of the day everything visualizes just fine including the shadows. The exact interval of this error depends on the camera position and day of the year.

Hope anyone can help!

Juantxo

Problem is not related with Skelion. Update to SketchUp 2015 last release.
And use perspective view.

Froedem

Something else, could you let me know how the shadow derating calculations of a face are determined? Is this based on a single string for the face (so that the worst performing module at a given time sets the minimum for the others) or is this based on a design with optimisers (performance of modules is independent of each other)? In any case it would be useful to have this option included in the software in order to come to an optimal system design or to calculate both shadow deratings. Besides that it would even be better to be able to select modules to be included for each independent MPPT string.

Cheers

HANERGY

Hi Guys!
I'm a beginner user of Sketchup (Pro 2015, version 15.3.331 64 bit) and I'm trying to design a PV-system in a flat roof with several chimneys. Is there any way to create the shading area and then automatically avoid those while filling in the available surfaces?

I hope someone can help me!
Many thanks!

juju

@hanergy said:

Hi Guys!
I'm a beginner user of Sketchup (Pro 2015, version 15.3.331 64 bit) and I'm trying to design a PV-system in a flat roof with several chimneys. Is there any way to create the shading area and then automatically avoid those while filling in the available surfaces?

I hope someone can help me!
Many thanks!