Version 4.0.3 - 07.03.2025
- Fixed a long standing bug (06/27/2023) with the edit dimension tool for framing dimensions (rectangular walls).

This next trip to the cabin will involve some cleanup and slash moving work as well as cutting in fire breaks etc which is usual this time of year and I'll be installing a wall banger still AC unit in the cabin and testing it on a 2000w power station as well as on my own power.

It will be nice having the AC there as all the shade trees are gone and it will get into the 90's during the day (and only upper 50's at night) so we'll need the AC to help cool things down!  I'm also bringing a mister to hook up to the water system so we can cool down in the afternoon.

I'll have a few friends and family at the cabin on my 60th Birthday (did my 50th there as well -- and others) so it will be nice to cool down a little.

I'll bring along some MC4's and cables to hook up my ground mount panels to my power station and plan to run the AC off it and see how it does passing through the solar like that with an 8000btu AC unit.  I may also bring along a DC charger like the one above to use it to charge back up the Power station to see how effective that is and simulate an major outage.

Sounds like fun

Drawing Fittings:



Editing Fittings:



The library is similar to the Electrical plugins system so one can simply add in as many pre-built custom fitting components as you like.

It would be really nice if I setup my fittings menus similar to the UK outlet and switch menus in the electrical plugin, so that they give you a small preview image. The question is how much work will this be to create.

Thanks MD   It was an awesome experience and I was totally amazed at the level of craftsmanship!!  Those folks are simply incredible!

I'll be back at my cabin, finally, in a week or so and bringing up a wall banger AC unit to install and run off my solar and test with a power station.  I've been doing all kinds of power related stuff on YT because my busted up body won't let me do what I want to do (build more, run my sawmill etc) but I'm having fun with it and if you've ever wondered about DC to DC alternator chargers, this is the 4th I've played with! and I'm loving these things!

I'm debating whether to model the collar as shown. It does make the fitting more realistic but it does add some volume to the overall solid, which may affect my volume calcs if needed. I suppose I could figure out a clever way to calculate this out of the volume if it ever becomes an issue.



Thoughts?

Here is the start of the "boot" library:

4", 5", 6", 7", 8"

The naming convention is:

BOOT90_4X10X6_2

The last number indicates the vertical rise of the register box.



I think I have a enough now to start testing the component insertion logic.

Wow!  Thanks Erik

Thanks!  It was so much fun to be there!

The same duct assembly switched to round and oval profiles:





I don't really see any other duct profiles being used than these three (Round, Rectangular, Oval).

In the next week I will be adding the "Edit Segment" and "Edit Node" menus/tools. Once those are complete I will need some beta testers to provide feedback and feature suggestions. If you are interested and can provide high quality feedback then I would be willing to issue you a license. Please be aware that this plugin is in no way ready for a production environment. I still need to clean up the global settings (borrowed from the Floor plugin) and a number of tools are still needing to be added.

Please email me (nathan@medeek.com) if you are interested. I probably will only issue about 10 licenses for BETA testers, I don't want too many voices at this point. My preference is that you are familiar with HVAC and you do some of this modeling within SketchUp.

First look at the main assembly edit menu:



It seems like these menus always start off simple but then get overloaded with parameters. I will do my best to keep it simple but feature requests will ultimately dictate what form it evolves to.

Rectangular duct appears to be working as far as corners that "bend". I've still need to add in round and oval ducting, both of which should not be too much more difficult than square or rectangular ducting.

A few more editing tools to add (ie. segments, nodes, edge editing etc...). My youngest soon suggested that I also include a copy or eye drop tool similar to what is in the Wall plugin. I think this makes sense since it will be quite tedious to edit a bunch of segments or nodes and have to update them all separately.

I think it might also be useful to create a tool(s)which allows one to join or split an assembly into different assemblies.

After that I need to start adding in options for the nodes (ie. registers, boots, transitions etc...)

When creating a new duct assembly from a bunch of edges currently one has to select each edge by clicking on it. I think it need to update the tool so that one can drag a window and select the edges this way if desired. I've actually never programmed a "window selector" in any of my tools thus far so that should be interesting and maybe a little challenging.