Good luck,. Posted: Tue Dec 06, am. Posted: Tue Dec 06, pm. Posted: Tue Dec 13, pm. It has been 8 weeks now Kinectrics told the supplier they will ship it soon, but have not supplied a tracking number. I have used ETAP for the rest of the facility with no issues. See note 3 of Table 3. If you don't do a lot of over 15kV calcs I'd consider cancelling the order and putting the money toward subbing that study or part of the study out to someone else who already has the software.
If you can't even get the goods to start with what's the training and support going to be like after they've already cashed the check? Posted: Fri Dec 16, pm. Posted: Mon Jan 30, pm. I wanted to provide a follow up and close the loop on this thread. I ended up cancelling the order for Arcpro software. I was quoted weeks delivery time for the software, and after waiting over 10 weeks I decided to cancel the order.
Any practitioner using SKM gettings really, really good at keeping a ton of extra backups and copies everywhere. This also means that you really can't have multiple engineers working on separate subprojects within SKM either.
Management of the database becomes a huge cumbersome problem if there is more than one person using it. This is never mind the fact that essentially SKM Powertools has a serious case of schizophrenia because it is actually a mixture of multiple DOS tools with Windows dressing on top that are all independent software programs running more or less on an independent database.
That's why the concept of "eating your own dogfood" is so important. That's just a symptom of a bigger problem though. There is also basically no way to check the results except at a macroscopic with error bars level because it is doing a lot of little detailed things in the background like fiddling with asymmetrical fault current data that is nearly impossible to replicate or document what it does.
If you just take the output that it gives you and check it back to IEC standards for short circuit,, that seems to work pretty well. But if you then manually calculate incident energy using say the IEEE provided Excel spreadsheet, it fails particularly with a significant reactive load.
When we look at Arcpro in comparison all the usability and stability problems are simply not present. It does one thing and one thing only, and it does it really well. The only inherent problem with Arcpro if you want to call it that is that it is hard to check the results because again the actual software algorithms are basically secret.
Unlike SKM which purports to follow a standard but does something undocumented and unpredictable with that standard, Arcpro predates the standard and does something entirely different. It also isn't "predictable" as in I can't take the same inputs and do the math myself and come up with the same number because I don't even know what math to apply. So I'm in the same position of guessing whether or not to trust in the output of the software.
Both are doing some kind of extra math in the background that neither one documents. So I'm left with looking for other factors. Both have been around for a very long time. Arc flash module was added quite a long time later, basically copying to some degree the IEEE empirical model.
Arcpro is kind of the original "arc flash hazard analysis" software, coming out shortly after Lee's equation and prior to what has become the IEEE empirical model. So we seem to be at a "zero-zero" score so far. Arcpro is obviously professionally done software.
It works. It doesn't crash. It does exactly one thing and one thing well. It is easy to use and doesn't require a 2 week training class during which mostly they teach you all kinds of tricks and workarounds to get past all the bugs.
SKM crashes all the time. It also suddenly starts giving erroneous results when you are using it, forcing a complete rebuild of the analysis data. It has no "undo" function so there's no way to easily do "what if" analysis. It often corrupts the project database forcing various rebuilds and regular and routine backups of the working file. And it is essentially unusable when it comes to having multiple engineers working on and maintaining a project.
In short it looks, acts, and smells like alpha grade software and always has. The original DOS authors are obviously long gone. The major advantages of SKM these days is that it has been around the longest so like Autocad almost everyone is familiar with it in engineering circles, and that they have the largest device libraries and excellent support when it comes to adding additional ones just call and wait a couple weeks.
But taken on it's merits, it's crap. Finally e have the "eat your own dogfood" philosophy. Kinetrics intentionally or not practices this, and it's reflected in the software itself. So when it comes right down to it, do I want to trust a bunch of programmers that have proven themselves to be a bunch of second rate hacks that are doing who know's what in the background with my data and who clearly have absolutely no idea how arcing faults occur in the real world because they have absolutely no real world experience of any kind, or do I trust in the company that was there before any of the rest of us where it is clear that they collectively have more experience with faults of any kind from the basic research side of things through application research through putting it into practice?
I think the answer is pretty obvious if this is just a question of the merits of the results and how much one should trust company A vs. To be fair, I use SKM, too. It integrates power system analysis directly into arc flash analysis. As long as you save early, save often, and run a ton of analysis on the results to verify every little detail just in case yet another bug or unsaved result crept in somewhere and make routine backups frequently just in case it corrupts itself again, you can live with SKM and get fantastic results out of it.
The biggest advantage of SKM though is that it's kind of like putting out spreadsheets in Excel.. OSHA did not forbid the use of Lee. But if Lee gives you some crazy insane high result, then Arcpro gives something probably more realistic that OSHA would accept. Kinectrics can then recommend to clients the protective clothing that is suitable for workers who may be accidentally exposed to electric arc in their facilities.
The Kinectrics advantage is a comprehensive understanding of the necessary input variables, and outputs, of the various computation techniques. Kinectrics has successfully completed numerous projects for major North American utilities and has provided advanced technical support for international research and testing projects designed to increase scientific understanding of issues related to arc flash phenomena.
The software models high power arcing by taking into account such complex variables as gas properties, arc electrode materials, thermal radiation and convective energy dissipation. Sign up to our newsletter. All Features. ArcFlash Essentials makes creating one-line diagrams simpler and smarter than ever. Simply drag and drop devices from an intuitive equipment palette, add documentation for convenient access, and let ArcFlash Essentials perform the complex NFPA 70E calculations for you.
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