Frame Grouping with Transformer Placement
For a long time PVcase Ground Mount users have been asking themselves, "how do I best group the frames around my transformer station / central inverters?" Up until now, it wasn't an easy process, that required some delving into the Electrical Design feature, which some of you didn't really have time for.
We decided to name transformer stations / skids / central inverters as "Powerstations" for this new feature to make a common understanding for all types of electrical configurations.
We are happy to announce the Frame Grouping feature that will solve this problem. It allows you to quickly and easily group PV frames and place a Powerstation to serve them. You can quickly "block out" a PV area for the initial phase of the design. There's no need to add any electrical devices (strings, combiners, inverters) at this stage. It's just to get an idea of where to place the Powerstations. This is really useful at preliminary design stage, where there is no time to do a full electrical design, but you need to give an idea of the Powerstation locations for project stakeholders or authorities.
Where
On the ribbon, select "Frame grouping" and a window will open.
How
First, you can decide whether your Frame groups will contain Powerstations or not.
If enabled, you can setup the details of the Powerstation. The Powerstation itself can be modelled in two ways:
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You can select an existing AutoCAD block object.
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Alternatively, you can define the dimensions of the unit, and a block will be created for you.
The AC Power is used to determine DC/AC ratio when selecting the PV frames that will be assigned to the Powerstation. The offset setting will displace any frames with the defined offset area. You can also choose the colours that your Frame groups will be created with.
When you want to start grouping the frames, hit "Create group."
First, select your PV frames, until you are happy with the DC/AC ratio and press Enter.
Then, if you enabled it, you can choose the position of your Powerstation. Wherever you place it, PV frames will be automatically removed from the Offset area that you have chosen.
If you chose not to place Powerstations, you will be prompted to pick frames for the next area. You can keep adding Frame groups and Powerstations until you are done. The colours for the areas will be chosen according to your settings.
Capacity Iteration Notes
To help identify different design scenarios, you can now add notes that describe the scenario in a helpful way.
Where
On the ribbon, select "Capacity iteration" and a window will open.
How
After generating some iterations, you can add some descriptive text in the "Notes" column. This will be saved within the "Iteration scenarios" list, and exported to the BOM.
Minor Updates:
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Roads drawn in 3D are now working more reliably and are easier to modify.
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TFT segments are now shown together as one frame on the Layout Information and in BOM Export.
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Terrain Mesh performance improvement. The mesh is now rendered at once, instead of growing in the modelspace. You will also get an alert when we detect that a large area has been selected for meshing.
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Creating a new Frame preset will automatically assign a new colour, not the default one.
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Front Views and Cross Sections are now possible on non-terrain based designs.