jamesbm

Hi PV*SOL team. Are there any plans to increase the 5000 panel limit? I am now regularly looking at projects above the limit both on rooftop and groundmount. It would be great to have the full system modelled in 3D even if it takes a while to run the simulation. It is also quite hard to work with sites covering a larger area - you can't zoom out far enough to see the whole site. On a positive note - I'm really loving the 3D import feature. Now I have the settings right I am able to work with some large and complicated buildings. Thanks

After following the steps above it seems to be working for me. Many thanks for your help. The model does seem to be less stable with even a simple imported building, I have had a lot of crashes. The last attempt went well, a useful tool I found is the SketchUp extension SolidInspector2. I had been trying in vain for a long time to fix my buiding to have volume. I installed the extension, hit the button and it fixed it instantly. Thanks for your efforts on the great new feature. Keep up the good work.

Thanks Augustin that is really useful. I will do a quick test to see if that solves my corrupted file problem. Still no response from the PVSol team. Hoping to hear soon.

Are there any other formats in the free version of Sketchup that will import? I had the same issue with missing walls. I gave each surface a texture and it seemed to solve the problem. I hope the issues get resolved, importing will be so useful.

Many thanks for the quick response. I have sent my files on an email as requested. Great to hear my first issue is due to be resolved in the next release. I have found the same issue in the past with other non standard buildings. It would be great if it was possible to deactivate collisions on all objects. Hope you can help with my other issue. If there is something I can do differently with the designs to make them more stable let me know. For your reference I have designed the buildings in Sketchup and imported as .dae files including textures. Thanks James

The ability to import buildings from other software is brilliant. It will make complex building shapes much easier to model. I have 2 issue I would love some help with - 1. My imported builidngs seem to have a 1 meter restricted area around them. This has stopped me from putting buildings next to each other (see attached image). I can't find a way to change this, can you suggest how to resolve this? would it be possible to add a "deactivate collisions" option like with the standard buildings? 2. I have built my first big system with the new features. I have configured all modules and saved but it crashed when I tried to exit the 3D model. On re-opening the file it crashes when I try to enter the 3D model. Is there any way to recover the file? Ideally I don't want to go back to an old backup and re-configure inverters, especially if it is likely to crash again. Any tips? Many thanks James

I am hoping to build a set of irregular buildings based on a design drawing (see attached). I have outlined each different pitch and extruded as an arbitrary building. The option to deactivate collisions is not available for arbitrary buildings. Is there another way to force the buildings to overlap? Sometimes when you first pick up a building it allows you to overlap with another building but this seems to be a glitch. This is how I have overlapped the other joining buildings. Any suggestions on how to get 2 arbitrary buildings to overlap? Many thanks James

Has anyone had a try of PVsol 2016? All the new features seem unstable and hard to use. I was told that 2016 would use Sketchup for 3d modelling which would have been amazing. Is it possible to import buildings from Sketchup? Hopefully the glitches will get worked out but even then I don't think the new features look useful. James

To understand the impact of shading I have run the same system with and without shading. The reports show a slight increase in yield with shading, The shaded system shows a loss from shading more than made up for by increase in low light performance. The seems wrong, has anyone else experienced this? any tips to understand why this happens?