Hi all.

A client gave me a .dez file they said was an Easy Power file. I don't have or use Easy Power. I sent the file to SKM for conversion but they said they could not open it and asked me to export a bunch of data to a CSV file using Easy Power and send that to them that data for conversion to SKM. I don't have Easy Power so I cannot do that and I don't want to ask the customer to jump through a bunch of hoops. I'd rather re-draw it from scratch in SKM before I do that.

Anyhow, here is my question. Is a .dez file really an Easy Power project file and is having that file alone all one should need to open it in Easy Power? SKM didn't give me an explanation. They just said they couldn't open the file.


Thanks.

Hey Brent...

I don't use EasyPower either, but a quick web search revealed:

https://help.easypower.com/ezp/10.3/Con ... _Files.htm

Mike

Hmm. That may be the problem or part of the problem. Thank Mike.

I just added that information to the SKM ticket (maybe their version is too old to open the .dez file I sent them). I have no idea what version of Easy Power the .dez file I have is from.

Thanks again Mike.

Update:

A YouTube viewer, and now new friend, of mine that I had corresponded with on a few things before has EasyPower. I reached out to him to see if he could open the .dez file. He could and he offered to export the job to .CSV files so SKM could convert it. He also produced several very helpful reports from EasyPower plus some the one-lines in .dxf and Revit and more.

I sent the CSV's to SKM and they converted the job. It works fine. The downside is, when they did the conversion, NONE of the protective device library or settings data came along with it. They said that is how it would be. I have all the data and settings from the EasyPower reports so it is a matter of entering all that data in. A hassle but it's better than having to re-draw this entire project from scratch.

I will say this, the reports my new friend sent me from EasyPower are much better organized and better looking than what SKM has in their default/standard reports. SKM reports are very DOS-esque, LOTUS, dot matrix printer looking in comparison. If I were younger and not so entrenched in SKM, I'd look into buying and learning EasyPower.

Having used ETAP, SKM and EasyPower, through the years I have said if someone could take the best of the three and create software that it would be the best thing going. They all have their good and not so good for sure!

I have to use ETAP for one customer a couple times per year. Don't care for it. At all. I think mostly because I don't know any tips or tricks and have to slog through it each time.

I agree as we use SKM 90% of the time so when a client request another software it slows the process for sure. I think ETAP's library is better and if you want the single line on the TCC there is so much more flexibility in ETAP with the ability to scale it and position it on the curve vs having to create a template in SKM.

I finished building the SKM version of the EasyPower project. I'm not sure how much time the conversion saved me really. It did save some time but not dramatically. As mentioned before, NONE of the protective device data converted, nor did any of the cable types. It only "knew" cable size and length and what was connected to what so I still had to assign a type to every single cable in the project. Whoever created the EasyPower model also named all the cables. I really hate that. I have never had a good reason to name cables and I have done in the hundreds of studies at least. Probably not 1000 studies but in the hundreds for sure. Since they built the project that way, I now feel like I should continue the cable naming convention for the adds and changes since the last study. What a pain.

Coincidently, I got another project earlier this week that had been partially done in EasyPower. I say partially because they had modeled most of the 480V distribution but none of the 208V. I was given the paper copy of their report binder. Not the .dez file. I thought about asking for the .dez but decided it wasn't worth the hassle and just drew the job from scratch in SKM. It's about a 500 bus project. It took me about 2.5 days to build including all the 208V distribution, working off the one-lines for the plant. I don't think it would have saved me much time by doing the conversion first.

Hi,
I’ve run into .dez files before and the catch wasn’t whether they opened in EasyPower at all, but whether the version that created them matched the one you’re trying to use so older builds often choke on newer saves. Even when you do get them converted for SKM, you’ll usually lose all the protective device settings, so the file alone rarely saves you from extra work