We’ve mentioned in an earlier post that we have been considering either creating a non-marine version DC Wire Sizer for solar, RVs, cars/motorcycle, etc. or adding a “non-marine” standard option to DC Wire Sizer’s Settings. We are now leaning towards the latter and would love to get input here in the blog comments or on DC Wire Sizer’s Facebook page on whether the non-marine standard should just be general wire sizing formulas or should be based on or allow the option of selected other standards (e.g., NEC, IEC, CEC, AS/NZS 3000, CSA, SAE, UL, and so on)?
DC Wire Sizer (2.0) is in development and will have notable new enhancements and features for marine cable gauge sizing.
Over the years we’ve received solar oriented requests like add “Solar PV Cable” to wire type list in DC Wire Sizer (now in version 1.1.1) or create a non-marine standards (aka ABYC, ISO) version of our 5-star customer rated DC Wire Sizer for solar installations and so on. On the latter request, after we release DC Wire Sizer 2.0, we will either add a feature in Settings to select a non-marine standard or rebrand a non-marine version of DC Wire Sizer.
And we are not stopping there, over the years we have visible noticed that the littlest to largest New England state has more residential solar installations then currently installed in Florida or countries like the Bahamas. Why are homeowners not installing solar? According to the National Reusable Energy Lab (NREL), over half of low-to-moderate income households are suitable for rooftop solar energy (that’s 42% of the total annual residential solar potential in the USA alone). Plus these households would benefit the MOST from solar installations since their potential solar output closely matches their electric consumption.
What we are hearing is that home owners would be very interested in solar energy if it was easy to get the following three questions answered:
Is their house suitable for solar energy?
What they would need (aka how many panels, what size and what other equipment)?
What it would cost to install a solar system?
In researching this through looking at applications on all platforms and NREL reports, we are finding there is little available for solar consumers to get accurate answers to all three of those questions without either paying for a solar site analysis ($$$) or committing to getting a quote from a solar agent.
So what if Dirty Dog Software built an iOS app to answer those three questions and more?
It’s hard to believe that DC Wire Sizer is 5 years old and we just had our first reported issue. An issue that only affected iPads running DC Wire Sizer 1.1. We not only resolved the reported issue but added a related enhancement that allows users editing existing wire run to convert Unit of Measure between "feet" to “meters”.
We also included a customer requested enhancement to add "Solar PV Cable" to the list of wire types for those installing solar panels on their boat.
Solar PV Cable in the Wire Types
Please feel free to send us any recommendations for changes and enhancements that you would like to see in the next general release. Thank you!
We received notification tonight from the Apple App Store that DC Wire Sizer, version 1.1 (build 84) has been approved and is Ready for Sale or update.
This is just a maintenance release (1.1) and we are currently working on a new general release of DC Wire Sizer that will have significant upgrades and enhancements. Please feel free to send us any recommendations for changes and enhancements that you’d like to see in the new general release. Thank you!
We are actively coding an enhanced version of DC Wire Sizer which will be available next year and an iOS 11 compatible maintenance release (1.1) will be available soon. DC Wire Sizer was so feature rich and stable on the initial release that we have not needed a maintenance release until iOS 11. This has given us plenty of time to design new features and upgrades to DC Wire Sizer and also design two other marine applications for release in 2018/19.
If you have suggestions for enhancements or changes to DC Wire Sizer or recommendations for new marine applications, please feel free to contact us through this post, email, or submitting a support ticket. Thank you!
Ann Avary interviews Julia Ashmun and Gayle Dunham of Dirty Dog Software (www.dirtydogsoftware.com), about the DC Wire Sizer app (used for boat’s DC wire sizing wire) they developed for the iPhone and iPad:
http://itsmyboat.com/2014/04/dirty-dog-software/
We designed DC Wire Sizer to use both North American (ABYC E-11) and European (ISO 10133) marine standards, as well as meters or feet and mm2 or AWG/SAE. And we were always planning on localizing DC Wire Sizer once we had feedback from the North American boaters. But what a pleasant surprise to find we had downloads in Chile, Finland, France, Mexico, and Netherlands with the English version of the application, in additional to downloads Australia, Canada and the US.
But don't worry, we are still planning on localizing DC Wire Sizer to more languages. Any suggestions on which languages should we should localize first?
We are excited to announce that DC Wire Sizer has completed Alpha testing and that all of the recommended UI changes have been implemented. The Beta release testing will start on April 28. Big thank you to all of our testers!
If you would like to be notified when DC Wire Sizer is in the App Store or sign up for our Newsletter - click: Sign Up.