IronBug: Change the AirLoopHVAC to output 'None' by Default?

Hi all, @MingboPeng

I have a question on a small Ironbug detail (first: have really enjoyed using IB! Its soooo good.).

This may be a particular use-case that others don’t need, but for me - when working on large projects (many hundreds of zones) its not uncommon for me to ‘cut’ the model or pull out just a few zones at a time to work on and run simulations on (to speed up long sim. times / isolate and QA/QC, etc…).

That’s all fine, but the one thing that makes that hard with IB is that the AirLoopHVAC component outputs a default loop, even with its getting ‘None’ as input on the demand side. For instance, if I have simple multi-zone model, and I break out the zones and apply IB systems, that all works good if I am running all the zones:

But if I want to isolate just one or another zone (just temporarily for testing while working / building the systems), then the AirLoopHVAC components still try and output their data, even though they are getting ‘none’ for their demand-side input:

So then in that case, of course I get a ‘Node Error’ since those rooms/zones aren’t included. I have some workarounds that can help manage this of course - and its not a huge deal - but if it was possible to just get the AirLoopHVAC to output ‘None’ until it is getting valid demand-side input, that would really help simplify / streamline in this particular use-case? It would really help to make ‘chunking’ the model for QA/QC work a lot easier I think.

Anyway - not a huge issue. Mostly IB is working amazing! thanks for all your work creating such a cool toolset. Example file attached if you are interested.

@edpmay
Example_IronBug_Part.gh (65.9 KB)

Hi @edpmay, valid point. AirLoopHvac is one of the very first component that I started, and the main reason for the current design was for my testing without filling out all the required inputs. But it definitely makes sense to make supply and demand side as required inputs. I will make it as the first priority on my todo list. Thanks for your suggestion.

That would be fantastic. thanks!
-E