SolmetricIPV iPhone Application User Manual Rev 2.0 copyright
Contents
1. SolmetricIPV iPhone Application User Manual Rev 2 0 copyright 2010 Solmetric Corporation www solmetric com Disclaimer SolmetricIPV Sun Tracker is designed as a pre screening tool for determining the suitability of a site for a solar installation Before making an investment decision you should have a professional analysis completed on your site Do not make financial decisions based solely on the information from this tool Do not climb on a rooftop without proper safety equipment and training Table of Contents ADOUE OMS LICL Posies sak alo 3 A RR 4 oi A A A A 4 A A O A ee ee ree mC 4 Pertormmo a Kylie Canido tios 7 Ama Saad 8 PS ALO y eave hrs rea race RA 9 Importing a Photo Or Pandora 10 lA AAA O A wren Gee S 10 Using AutoPan and Auto SUC cit id idad 10 Setting Sweep Start and End on a Phone 3G or iPod Touch oocccncccnccnnnnnccnnnconnonnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnonnnnnnnnnos 12 Across Face Siehtine Method A A td ios 13 BUON UA A tios 14 About SolmetricIPV SolmetriclPV is an iPhone based preliminary site assessment tool While it cannot match the speed and accuracy of the SunEye its low cost makes site assessment available to anyone with an iPhone The SolmetriclPV is the evolution of the SunTracker App developed by Imeasure Systems and acquired by Solmetric in February 2010 The app runs on the iPhone 3GS 3G or iPod Touch second generation iPod second generation has the speaker function The Phone 3GS wit2. of the iPhone sensor accuracy you should check the results of each survey carefully and do not make financial solely on the results from this tool System Setup Skyline Scan Page il Carrier gt When you open SolmetriclPV it will find your location using the built in GPS It will then present you with a sun path plot showing today s trajectory together with an animated sun that will track the sun path in real time It also shows the sun path for the summer and winter solstice If you are running on an iPod Touch you must manually enter your location in the Setup page Press the Setup button at the top left of the screen to navigate to the setup page Set up Page 1l ROGERS gt Skyline Scan Calibrate Site Name VIP s Home Lat 49 04 Long 122 84 Alt Array Azimuth 180 Array Tilt m a MTM Heads up Sight MTM Tracking Weather ES Inverter The Setup window allows you to input your configuration The first time you turn on the device you should calibrate the inclinometer Press the Calibrate Button top right and follow the on screen instructions The Site Name Field allows a unique name to be entered to identify the location of the survey If you are using an iPod Touch you must input your input your position manually The easiest way to find your position is Google Earth A close approximation is all you need I E city level accuracy The slider controls allow you to
3. 17 8m SolGate Inc Bik 280 098 01 290 Wp Soion Biue 2 0 09 290 Wp A asa Select your PV panel Manufacturer Model and the number of panels in the array The top right button will toggle between showing PTC ratings and STC ratings When you are finished press the top left Setup button to return to the setup page Your selection will be saved Inverter mil Carrier gt 12 06 PM 3500W 240Vac Utility Interactive Inverter Efficiency 95 5 Meter YES 1 Inverter Installation Rating 3 5kW Enphase Energy EVS3000 E Village Solar EVS3500 Fronius USA LLC EVS4600 Finally select your Inverter Manufacturer Model and the number When you are finished press the top left Setup button to return to the setup page Your selection will be saved On the Setup page press the top left Skyline Scan button t o return to the Skyline Scan Page With everything configured you are ready to do your survey and analysis Performing a Skyline Scan If you are running on a iPhone 3GS no set up is required If you are using a 3G or an iPod Touch you must set the start and end points for your scan using on screen markers Refer to the Setting Sweep Start and End ona iPhone 3G or iPod Touch section at the end of the document When ready press the Scan icon signified by the outline of two trees lower left If you get pop up asking you to clear the old scan first press the lower left clear
4. Phone camera has a view angle of 60 by 40 You will take photos in portrait this means that you can cover 60 of elevation You can simply snap a photo and import it You then use a known reference such as a tree to correctly align it In most cases you will want the panorama that covers the full sun path and elevations from zero to your highest skyline obstruction To capture the panorama you can use AutoPan and AutoStitch Using AutoPan and AutoStitch It is a three step process to get a panorama picture into Sun Tracker 1 Take a photo series using AutoPan use a tilt angle of 30 to take the series 2 Stitch the series with AutoStich 3 Import and and align the image into Sun Tracker With a bit of practice you can do this in less than a minute Autopan is another low cost app from Solmetric It allows you to take a perfect photo series over a known range with a known camera angle You can get AutoPan at the appstore It is a simple application so you should be able to follow the on screen instructions Typically a single pass is all you will need to capture the required panorama Take a series of photos from a heading of 60 to 300 with a tilt angle of 30 This will cover elevations from 0 to 60 and the full sun path in most latitudes If you want to cover more elevation range then make a second pass over the same range with a tilt of 50 or 60 A second app called AutoStitch from Cloudburst Research is used to stitc
5. arks Simply place your finger on the lines to drag them to the desired heading You should choose a reference points on your skyline that are easily identified and set your start and end at those headings On the iPod Touch or iPhone 3G this button will display the sun compass all Carrier gt Skyline Scan You can use the sun compass to set your marks Look along the line towards the current heading of the sun Then move the marks to your desired start and end points noting the position of objects that you can sight at those headings You can also use a hand compass but you must convert the compass bearing to a true bearing and set your marks accordingly Another convenient way to find orientation is to use Google maps or Google earth Across Face Sighting Method If you are running on an iPod Touch which does not have a camera you must use the Across Face sighting method On an iPhone you will likely use the Heads Up sight most of the time If you find the glare on the camera is too great you can use the Across Face sight First go to the Set up screen and turn off the Heads Up sight switch In this mode you will be holding the iPhone face up and sighting as illustrated below sight across screen toward skyline and trace When you start a scan the sighting screen will look like this Heading is only shown on iPhone 3GS You have four seconds to align yourself to your starti
6. can To record of this screen press the iPhone top right button and home button together That will execute a screen capture that will be saved in your iPhone photo album To perform shade analysis on this skyline press Analyze to start the process The analysis can take up to 40 seconds Analysis Page mI ROGERS gt 3 25 PM O a Skyline Scan Shade Analysis Solar Site Solmetric Home Azimuth 180 Tilt 45 Reference Station SAN FRANCISCO CA Shade Derating Annual 80 Summer 84 Winter 74 12 10 08 06 04 02 kWh Day m Report Adv Measurements Once the analysis is complete you will see this screen with key per m metrics and a monthly shade derating A derating of 100 indicated that there is no shading and 0 is total shading A figure of 82 indicates that 82 of the available monthly energy was captured 18 having been lost to shading The Mode button will display sun hour statistics The Adv Measurements button will take you to the Solmetric web site where you can see the Solmetric SunEye At this point you may decide to go back to the Skyline Scan Setup pages and try a different location or you may wish to change the panel tilt amp azimuth If you are happy with the results press Report to view the full analysis Report Page ll Carrier gt Shade Analysis Solar Energy Company Big Solar Co Name Top Rate Installer Customer VIP Customer Please review the
7. h its built in compass is the preferred platform SolmetriclPV is self contained all of the information you need for a site evaluation is stored on the iPhone By utilizing the compass on 3GS and inclinometer functions of the iPhone you simply trace the edge of your skyline with the on screen cross hairs The position and elevation of the obstructions are recorded an overlaid on a sun plot that shows todays sun path the current position of the sun and the summer and winter solstice Using a built in weather station database SolmetriclPV produces an estimate of the kWh solar energy that will be received at a location taking into account the losses due to local shading The iphone s high resolution graphical display makes it easy to review results on site You can show your customer why a particular location is best suited for the installation SolmetriclPV includes a large database of PV panel models and inverter models You select your configuration and the tool will estimate production from that configuration It supports fixed single and dual axis tracking systems SolmetriclPV generates a personalized PDF site survey report The report includes the shade profile estimated AC and DC output and estimated revenue per month from the electricity generated You can e mail this report from the job site back to your office The tool is useful for customer education pre assessment or doing on site verification however due to the limits
8. h the series together Once the frames have been stitched you can crop the photo if you wish Once imported into Sun Tracker you will use a dominant object to scale if necessary Save the panorama to your photo library You now have a panorama with a known start heading and a known baseline elevation stored in in your photo library Return to Sun Tracker On the main Skyline Scan Screen press sess and then Get New Select your panorama or individual image if desired Once imported the photo will be stored in Sun Tracker until you chose to clear it Your image will appear on the screen Sun Tracker aligns the image to a start heading of 60 and scales the image It defaults to assuming the image is covering 60 vertical range If this is not the case because the image was taken in landscape was made with two passes or was cropped you need to scale and nudge the image into place with the keys at the bottom of the screen To do this you need to know the heading and elevation of a dominant object The easiest way to learn is to do a scan exit and take a single shot photo of a dominant object then import the photo and align it Setting Sweep Start and End on a iPhone 3G or iPod Touch il Carrier gt Lat 49 0 Long 123 0 3 54 PM 13 Feb 10 The iPhone 3G and the iPod Touch does not have built in compass Hence the user must set the start and end headings for the sweep manually You do this by using the red and green m
9. icon This will bring up the sight screen 3G and 3GS Follow the on screen instructions and trace the outline of your skyline from east to west simply rotate and keep the cross hairs on the edge of the skyline e Make sure you have calibrated the inclinometer Confirm the readings are zero when the phone vertical and rises to 90 when aimed straight up e Always scan from East to West left to right in the northern hemisphere right to left in the southern hemisphere e f you lower the phone below 20 at any point during the scan the scan will terminate e If you are using a 3GS iPhone the scan range is 20 to 340 in the northern hemisphere 160 to 200 in the southern hemisphere If you are using an iPod Touch you will use the Cross face sighting iPhone users may also select this sighting method by turning off the Heads up sight switch on the Set up page See the Across Face Sighting Method section for more on this When you have finished the skyline trace simply press End or lower the phone A typical scan takes about 15 seconds On the iPhone 3G or iPod Touch you must ensure that you start and end at the headings you set and trace the skyline at a constant rate At the end of the scan the sighting screen will be dismissed automatically and you will be returned to the Skyline Scan page m1 ROGERS gt 3 21 PM O m n Analyze O Here is a result of a typical skyline s
10. ng point When you have finished the scan simply lower the phone Note e Make sure you have calibrated the inclinometer Test by going to the set up page and confirm that the readings are zero when the phone is level and 90 when holding the phone vertically e Always scan from East to West left to right in the northern hemisphere right to left in the southern hemisphere e f you lower the phone below 20 at any point during the scan the scan will terminate e If you are using a 3GS iPhone the scan range is 20 to 340 in the northern hemisphere 160 to 200 in the southern hemisphere Button Functions Skyline Toolbar Scan button brings up a screen that allows you to trace your skyline Jog button one a skyline has been scanned you can use this Jog button to reposition the scan This is a useful educational function as it allows the impact of obstructions at different positions an elevations to be simulated Picture import button overlay a photograph on the sun plot using this button Sun Compass button shown on the iPhone 3G and 3GS only It will display the Sun Compass Time Headings Button switches the sun plot between time and heading views Animation Control buttons controls the animated sun Fast Forward Pause and Stop Clears the previous scan
11. se reults carefully do not make financial decisions solely on these results Email Report If you choose Report you will be presented with this page Here you can personalize the report by adding your company name the name of the person who is doing the assessment and the customer name You can also add notes and import your company logo Press Preview to preview the report on screen or Email Report to send a copy of the PDF report via e mail You can find a sample report on the web site www solmetric com solmetricipv html Importing a Photo or Panorama Once you are satisfied with your survey and selected the best site you may want a photo record You can take a single shot or a panorama photo using your iPhone and overlay this on your skyline screen This is a useful confirmation of your trace accuracy and an easy to understand presentation to review with clients 11 ROGERS gt O MH Analyze South Face Lat 49 0 Long 122 8 4 06 PM 13 Feb 10 90 80 In the above a more complex profile has been used to illustrate the photo import When you import a photo the skyline shade profile changes to a red line Once you have imported your photo you may wish to adjust your scan line Use wr in the Skyline Scan toolbar to bring up controls to adjust the positioning of the scan More detail on how to capture and positioning a photo is given in the section below About the iPhone Camera The i
12. set the array tilt and azimuth There are two switches one that allows the GPS to be turned off allowing a position entered manually The second allows the sighting method to be selected These switches are not available on the iPod Touch The bottom toolbar buttons are used to configure the remainder of the settings From left to right these are as follows Tracking Set the array to switch from Fixed Single or Dual tracking mode Note the on screen tilt and azimuth slider display is updated with the appropriate controls for each setting Weather Station ll Carrier gt 11 57 AM F V Setup Region Canada rr a AB Summerland BC Vancouver Region Use the lower left region button to select your region then select your nearest weather station The database is comprehensive and world wide If you do not select a weather station a clear sky model will be used and values produced will be optimistic as the model assumes clear days every day When you are finished press the top left set up button to return to the setup page Your selection will be saved Electricity Costs kW h Input your electricity cost in kWh When you are finished press the top left set up button to return to the setup page Your selection will be saved PV Module il Carrier gt Setup a 290W Polycrystalline Module Size 2 0m STC Rating 290 0W 146 5W m BIPV NO 9 Module Array STC Rating 2 61kW Area
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