[Equest-users] Custom zone names in DD Wizards

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Has anyone played with zone name templates or the following screen
enough to make custom zone naming a relatively time-efficient exercise?

You get here clicking the 'Zone names and characteristics' button on the
2nd screen.

Maybe this is only a concept, but the idea of inputting a tag like
"OFFICE 123" in this screen, then having eQuest automatically apply that
tag to the space/ corresponding plenum and corresponding zones all in
one step sure seems attractive!

~Nick

NICK CATON, P.E.

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I've used this feature a couple times. It is nice however a couple
downfalls. It only changes the space names, does not apply to the
plenum names or zone names, so you still have to change those manually
in Detailed Edit mode. I've also had issues with eQuest freezing on me
when attempting to change a name, I'm curious if anyone else has had
this problem?

Thanks,

Matthew Larson, LEED AP BD+C

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i've done it. it worked pretty well in wizard mode. i don't recall it
actually helping so much in detailed mode but i could be misremembering
that part.

Patrick J. O'Leary, Jr.'s picture
Joined: 2011-09-30
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I?ve had the same issues with freezing.

CURT ROHNER, LEED AP BD+C, EIT

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Hi--I use this feature all the time in the wizard and it's the BEST!

A couple notes from my experiences:

- yes you can change the zones & plenum names too---at the bottom of the
window (look at Nick's screen shot) where it has a dropdown box for "spaces"
you can go and select "zones" and then change the name there. (This is
inconvenient in a way to have to name things twice, but remember that the
thermal zones and spaces are two separate things in DOE-2, thus we have no
choice but to name them twice.)
- You can use the copy paste function when doing the custom naming and I
found that using this helps to streamline my 'custom names' since I have to
type them individually for each space and each zone.
- I have had the function freeze up on me a couple of times, and I found
that this happened because I had too many zones and I was doing too many
things on my computer (besides eQuest) that the memory cache froze up and
thus caused my error in my model file. I believe it actually corrupted my
file a couple of times, but THank GOD for 'save-as' and I could revert to an
earlier copy of my file.
- This is the best place to do the custom naming if you remember to do it
while you are in wizard mode. Remember that the spaces and zones cannot
have the exact same names, there has to be a unique identifier between
these. I usually use the letter "Z" somewehre in the zone name. Or you can
just remove the space characters in the zone name and use the same name as
the space (sans the spaces).

I encourage anyone to use this function all the time because using custom
space/zone names always helps me navigate through my inputs faster if I am
familiar with the zone names. When you do the custom naming be mindful of
the number of zones you have in your model (too many is not a good thing.)
AND becareful to not run too many other programs in the background when you
are doing the custom naming--this is when I found the program to freeze up
the most. If I let eQuest have the "stage" and shut down my outlook, etc
then I don't have the issues of the program freezing.

Feel free to email or call if anyone has questions/comments about my
experience using this feature.

Cheers,
Pasha

Pasha Korber-Gonzalez's picture
Joined: 2011-09-30
Reputation: 600

Just thought I would chime in on the space naming conversation with another option. I use a macro to rename spaces and zones in excel once the model is in detailed edit mode. If you are interested in checking it out, you can download it from: http://www.esimforums.com/equest/viewtopic.php?f=55&t=118 It will only work in excel 2007 and above. Make sure to save a copy of your model before you try it. This macro has not been thoroughly tested on other computers.

Jeremy

___________________________________________
Jeremy McClanathan, P.E., BEMP, HFDP, LEED(r) AP BD+C

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Hi All,

*There's a free web-app: **eQUEST Space
Renamer*

It is a free web based tool where you can rename your spaces only, and it
edits the rest of your file so as to rename the plenums and zones. The only
current problem is that it doesn't work on files with floor multiplier
(hasn't been fixed because it's not really needed when using floor
multipliers)

Some of us have been using this for years and we were going to release it
for public use later this week (with another tool, stay posted!), but as
long as Nick asked the question...

Comment if you have trouble. Obviously, people use eQUEST differently, so
the code might not work for everyone's file setup.

Thanks,

Bob

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