Installable Head Loss Calculator

[liquid]

I just finished up writing an installable pump/plumbing head loss calculator and I need some beta testers for it. Anyone interested, please let me know. I've attached a screen shot of it below. Two nice things about the program are that you can save your various solutions to an Excel compatible file and you can add your own pumps to it.

Thanks!

Shane

 

[Anonymous]

That's cool!

 

[Anonymous]

Looks groovy, so what do you consider flexible pipe is under that guideline?

Also how about with water switching devices? OceanMotion, SCWD, etc?

 

[trido]

It sure would be nice if this were part of RDOs recource page.

 

[liquid]

Looks groovy, so what do you consider flexible pipe is under that guideline?

Also how about with water switching devices? OceanMotion, SCWD, etc?

Sanjay's got an excellent writeup on pumps and plumbing that might be worth a read:

An Engineering View of Aquarium Systems Design: Pumps and Plumbing by Sanjay Joshi, Ph.D., Nathan Paden, and Shane Graber, Volume 2, Issue 1, Advanced Aquarist's Online Magaine
http://www.advancedaquarist.com/issues/ ... turejp.htm

Dunno about water switching devices like a scwd, etc. I'd imaging that an additional field would need to be added to the interface to reflect those items in a setup.

It sure would be nice if this were part of RDOs recource page.

It will be after it's been beta tested.

Shane

 

[liquid]

FYI I just cut a beta release for download:

http://code.google.com/p/plumbingpy/downloads/list

Please install it and let me know what you think.

Shane

 

[liquid]

Anyone install it and try it out yet?

Shane

 

[trido]

The numbers look good to me. It is much easier to use than that other web sites calculator due to the drop down menus and scroll numbers. Some might be anal about point 5s and .75s though.


I am curious why none of the calculators have the Sequence Dart, Barracuda and Hammerheads on them. Is it because they are more commonly used as CL pumps?


You asked..... :lol:

 

[liquid]

I am curious why none of the calculators have the Sequence Dart, Barracuda and Hammerheads on them. Is it because they are more commonly used as CL pumps?

Dunno why no one has added them yet. I do know that the initial pumps were added almost 3 yrs ago so it's high time some new ones get added.

The big thing is finding the pump curve for each of these pumps. After that it's a bit of graphing and math and they can be easily added.

I've got an article coming out in AAOLM about the calculator detailing how to use the program and add pumps to the program as well. Hopefully people will use the article to add more pumps and submit them to the project on Google Code so they can be added. My last count there was +120 pumps in that calculator, which is quite a lot.

Feel like finding the pump curves for these pumps?

Shane

 

[liquid]

BTW if there are any feature requests, I'm all ears.

Shane

 

[baxter]

Great program! :lol:

 

[baxter]

Great program! :lol:

 

[mr_X]

i tried it on a mj1200 on NurseSmartyPants' application- 4 feet, a scwd, 3 bends....it told me the gph after all that is ZERO...lol. i think i felt some flow when i had that mj running... :?

 

[liquid]

What parameters did you use? Can you save your input parameters using the program and post them here?

Shane

 

[mr_X]

here.....am i reading this right? i'm looking at total flow rate, right?

 

[liquid]

Conversely you could have did a File - Save and posted the data from the Excel spreadsheet instead but a screenshot also works.

I'll have to look into that one. According to the online calculators (which this program was based on), they're also reporting that there would be no flow:

http://reefs.org/pumps/index.php?submit ... ntrances=1

http://reefcentral.com/calc/hlc2.php?su ... ntrances=1

However the pump curve is saying at 4' head pressure there should be ~125 gph of flow:

http://www.reefs.org/library/pumps/pumps/mj1200.html

I'll look into it.

Shane

 

[liquid]

Yes, it was an error. Please go to:

http://code.google.com/p/plumbingpy/downloads/list

and download the latest pumps.xml file. Save this to your 'C:\Program Files\Pump Head Loss Calculator\' folder and restart your application. It correctly reports ~100 gph flow for that configuration.

I cut a new release of the calculator so as to package the new pumps.xml file with it but you don't need to download that executable as the only real change was the pumps.xml file.

Shane