<html><head><style type='text/css'>p { margin: 0; }</style></head><body><div style='font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 12pt; color: #000000'><font face="'Times New Roman'" size="3" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; ">Dear all,</font><style>p { margin: 0; }</style><div style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); ">
</div><div style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; "><br></div><div style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; "><font face="'Times New Roman'" size="3">I downloaded Combisys demo</font> <span style="font-size: medium; ">and found it is pretty easy to use as an education tool </span></div><div style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; "><font face="'Times New Roman'" size="3">to show the basic operation of solar combi-system.</font></div><div style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; "><font face="'Times New Roman'" size="3">I even discussed with some students in my lesson about the content of trd file, </font></div><div style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; "><font face="'Times New Roman'" size="3">sth like: how the data transfer between types, and how to add our cities into the demo to extend its function, </font></div><div style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; "><font face="'Times New Roman'" size="3">and how to add some solar collector types they obtained from google to the demo. </font></div><div style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; "><font face="'Times New Roman'" size="3">To be honest, I can feel they really like this demo.</font></div><div style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; "><font face="'Times New Roman'" size="3">One of them asked me a question about how to output the results of two online plotters in the system.</font></div><div><font face="'Times New Roman'" size="3"><font size="3">Actually, the system, </font>described<font size="3"> in combisys.trd demo file, contains: </font></font></div><div><font face="'Times New Roman'" size="3" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; "><br></font></div><div><font face="'Times New Roman'" size="3" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt; ">a. 2 online plotters: unit 41, type 65, output file: </font><font face="'Times New Roman'">Assign ***.ou1</font><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: medium; "> </span></div><div><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: medium; "> unit 45, type 65, output file: </span><font face="'Times New Roman'">Assign ***.ou2</font></div><div><font face="'Times New Roman'">They are mainly used for showing the operation information of the system.</font></div><div><font face="'Times New Roman'">In the original content of combisys.trd file, they are set "no need to output result file", just used as two "monitors". </font></div><div><font face="'Times New Roman'"><br></font></div><div><font face="'Times New Roman'">b. Unit 51, Type 24, Monthly Integrator + Unit 52, Type 25, Printer</font></div><div><font face="'Times New Roman'">they can be considered as two partners, and work together to output file: Assign ***.out</font></div><div><font face="'Times New Roman'"><br></font></div><div><font face="'Times New Roman'">c. Unit 50 Type 28 Simulation Summary</font></div><div><font face="'Times New Roman'">output file: Assign ***.sum</font></div><div><font face="'Times New Roman'"><br></font></div><div><font face="'Times New Roman'">The thing is </font></div><div><font face="'Times New Roman'">we remove the "*" before the output statement "</font><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; ">Assign ***.ou1</span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; ">" and ou2 in the related groups of online plotters, so that the demo can output these two result files.</span></div><div><font face="'Times New Roman'">however, we found no data is in the ou1 and ou2 file, they are blank.</font></div><div><font face="'Times New Roman'">and other output files works.</font></div><div><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; "><br></span></div><div><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; ">So, we did some assumption analysis ( actually, it likes a simple brain storm ) about why it happens:</span></div><div><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; ">a. no data are calculated out by demo: that is not true, because online plotter works very, both of them. all the performance curves are shown every calculation step.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; ">b. online plotters only show the results, not record the data into output file: </span></div><div><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; "><br></span></div><div><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; ">we thought that is also not true. The script regarding the online plotter is shown below:</span></div><div><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; "><br></span></div><div><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; "><div>*|[OL2|</div><div>*</div><div>*</div><div>Unit 45 Type 65 Online plotter</div><div>*</div><div>Parameters 10 <font color="#ff0000">! Here shows 10 parameters of type 65, OFF=0 means display online; LU=-1 , we guess it is means logical unit =-1?</font></div><div>*</div><div>*NbLeft NbRight LeftMin LeftMax RightMin RightMax </div><div>6 2 0.0 100000000 0.0 100.0</div><div>*NbPlots XGridPts OFF LU</div><div>1 10 0 -1</div><div>*</div><div>Inputs 8</div><div>*</div><div>44,1 44,2 44,5 44,6 44,7 44,4 EFFCOLL SOLFRAC</div><div>ESol EAux EMains EDHW EHouse ELossTank EffCol SolFrac</div><div>*</div><div>*</div><div>Labels 5</div><div>*</div><div>kJ %</div><div>Energy</div><div>Percentage</div><div>Integrated</div><div>*</div><div>Assign ***.ou2 22 ! <font color="#ff0000">here we just remove the header sign "*".</font></div><div>*</div><div>*|]</div></span></div><div><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; "><br></span></div><div><font face="'Times New Roman'">c. this online plotter is type 65c, means a online plotter without file: because "assign" statement has already been contained, so it seems not to be a right answer.</font></div><div><font face="'Times New Roman'">d. the post-processing will erase the data in the ou1 and ou2 files: that is a interesting idea from one student, but we checked the "out" folder, bat and txt file did not support this assumption.</font></div><div><font face="'Times New Roman'"><br></font></div><div><font face="'Times New Roman'">In a summary, we have no idea about why two output files-ou1 and ou2 are blank.</font></div><div><font face="'Times New Roman'">Thus, I send this email to all of you for a help.</font></div><div><font face="'Times New Roman'">Any comments and advise will be helpful to us.</font></div><div><font face="'Times New Roman'"><br></font></div><div><font face="'Times New Roman'">Thanks, </font></div><div><font face="'Times New Roman'"><br></font></div></div></body></html>