First time here? Check out the Help page!

Question-and-Answer Resource for the Building Energy Modeling Community
Get started with the Help page
Ask Your Question
10

What tool do you use to draw schematic of air loops and plant loops?

asked 9 years ago

updated 9 years ago

Whether you want to communicate with someone, plan your approach for modeling or label your nodes for an EnergyPlus simulation, it's often useful to draw out a schematic of an air loop or a plant loop, so you can see all the equipment and connections you need.

I usually do that by hand, but it's not easy to share it or to modify it. Using AutoCad for that is overkill.

I was wondering if people have found an easy to use and quick sketching tool, preferably free (and open source even better).

Ideally I'd like something with a library of common things where you can drag and drop your objects, and snap some connecting lines forced at a 90° angle. If you move an equipment, all connections would still be snapped to it. It would ideally also handle nicely lines crossing each other (creating bridges)

Update

Here is an example of what I may want to draw:

Example of a plant loop

Preview: (hide)

Comments

I assume you are looking for something that allows you to edit at the component level. What you are describing sounds a lot like OpenStudio. What am I missing? Or what is OpenStudio missing? Does it do too much checking for what you are looking for? Is it that it forces you to have too much of the rest of the model?

__AmirRoth__'s avatar __AmirRoth__  ( 9 years ago )

You should update your gravatar, you aren't globally recognizable in it.

__AmirRoth__'s avatar __AmirRoth__  ( 9 years ago )

I just want to sketch something, and I might want to add like a 2-way valve if I want to, or I may want to show both the condenser and chiller water loop at the same time. I like what OpenStudio has for air loops and plant loops, but I could use more flexibility.

Julien Marrec's avatar Julien Marrec  ( 9 years ago )
4

(and no, I won't change my gravatar. It's the only way I can still go incognito to some places. Otherwise people keep stopping me everywhere, being all like "Hey, aren't you on this uber famous website called UnmetHours?", it's affecting my personal privacy)

Julien Marrec's avatar Julien Marrec  ( 9 years ago )
2

@Julien Marrec, we have discussed concept of a multi-loop view where you can see connections, but not on our radar at all. Certainly something you can add to user voice. As far as diagraming software I haven't used yEd for HVAC, but I use it for many other things. It is free, pretty intuitive, and powerful.

David Goldwasser's avatar David Goldwasser  ( 9 years ago )

7 Answers

Sort by » oldest newest most voted
4

answered 9 years ago

Lucidchart is great for this kind of drawings. It connected to Google Drive, free, and better than Visio.

Preview: (hide)
link

Comments

Lucidchart is what I tend to use as well.

Jamie Bull's avatar Jamie Bull  ( 8 years ago )
4

answered 9 years ago

Archmage's avatar

updated 9 years ago

I use Visio. The dynamic connectors work fairly well. And it feels seamless for figures in Word.

Preview: (hide)
link
3

answered 9 years ago

I use powerpoint, it isn't great I will give you that but it is very flexible and once you have one schematic drawn out it doesn't take long adjust it for other systems. I also use cacoo a bit, never for schematics to be fair but it might work.

Preview: (hide)
link
3

answered 8 years ago

updated 8 years ago

I'm trying the online tool draw.io, which is FOSS and can save diagrams locally or to the cloud and has some useful built in shape libraries.

  • Floorplans
  • Proc. Eng.

Here's an example of an air-side system using some of the OpenStudio app images.

image description

Preview: (hide)
link
2

answered 9 years ago

Preview: (hide)
link

Comments

This is what we use in eppy for the loop diagrams but it seems fairly limited. I haven't looked into it in detail though so perhaps it's worth developing further.

Jamie Bull's avatar Jamie Bull  ( 8 years ago )
2

answered 9 years ago

If you literally just want to rough out layouts, I would think something like Visio or Dia might suit. I did a quick Google search and found HVAC templates for both.

Preview: (hide)
link
2

answered 8 years ago

updated 8 years ago

I just came across a template for Google Drawings, here.

It is limited but it could be a good alternative to quickly create and share schematics.

Preview: (hide)
link

Your Answer

Please start posting anonymously - your entry will be published after you log in or create a new account.

Add Answer

Training Workshops

Careers

Question Tools

3 followers

Stats

Asked: 9 years ago

Seen: 1,763 times

Last updated: Oct 07 '16