PIPEQ.EXE by M & B Software This is a simple Windows program to calculate the flow velocity and flow rate or "Q" (CFS) in pipes. The program will make a chart inside of a window, where the information can be marked and copied to the clipboard for use in other applications. At the same time that the information is being written to the screen, it can be written to a ASCII text file, so that it is saved permanently to disk. An easy way to install the program is to pick the window you want to put the program in, and "drag" the window to the bottom of the screen. Now, when you open the File Manager, part of the window will still be visable at the bottom of your screen. Use the File Manager to display the subdirectory where you have copied PIPEQ.EXE. The file will have a small icon just to the left of the name. Place the cursor on that icon, and hold the left mouse button down. You will be able to "pick up" the icon. As long as you hold down the mouse button, you will find that you can drag the icon anywhere on the screen. Drag it into the window where you want it, and release the mouse button. The default icon is rather plain, so we have included an icon, that you can add to the screen, if you want to. It is called PIPEQ.ICO. To install the icon, click once on the old, ugle icon, to make it the current file in the window. When you do this, the name below the icon will be highlighted. Now, you can select "File" from the top menu bar, and then the "Properties..." option. At this point, a new window will pop up, with some information, and four buttons. The top line in the box is the "Description", which will be "Pipeq", if you dragged the file into the window, as we suggested. This is what appears below the icon, in your window, and you can change this to "Pipe Q Calculator", or anything else that you want. The next line is the path/filename of the PIPEQ.EXE file, which Windows figured out when you dragged the icon around. Don't change this. To change the icon, you want the button on the far right, named, oddly enough, "Change Icon". When you click on this guy, you get yet another window, showing the current icon, and some other things. The top line in the window is titled, "File name:". Here, you will see the path/filename of the PIPEQ.EXE file where the ugly icon is stored. This entry has nothing to do with the operation of the program, it just tells where to look for the icon. We'll assume you copied the program and the icon into the same directory. If you did not, you are now on your own. If you did, leave the drive and path the same, but change the file name from PIPEQ.EXE to PIPEQ.ICO. Now, click on the "OK" button, and you'll go back to the first small window. Just click "OK" again, and you'll now have our beautiful, illustrative, full-color, artistic, semi-3D, icon in place of the ugly one. Now, we know that this program will not be your big-time windows app, so you may not even want to install it. To run it without installing it, just open the file manager, and double-click on the filename, PIPEQ.EXE. It will run fine that way. If you are in DOS, you can simply type WIN PIPEQ and that will work too. Page 1 OK, so you can get it running. Now how does it work? All you will need to know is the size of your pipe, the length, the vertical drop, and the roughness coefficent (N). If you don't know what a roughness coefficient is, get out of this text file, type del pipeq.*, and free up some room on your hard disk. This program is not for you. If you just want to see it work, .025 is a good coefficient to use for typical corrugated metal pipe (CMP). The first thing you see is a decision box, which asks, "Send results to ASCII file?". You get three buttons. Select "Yes" for yes, "No" for no, and "Cancel" to call the whole thing off. So far, this is not rocket scientist material, so most engineers will get this far without big problems. If you say yes, you will be prompted for a file name. There are no rules about what you call your file, except those imposed by DOS. You simply supply the filename and extension of your choice. If you say no, there will be no file created. Either way, you will return to the "Pipe Chart Utility" window, where we will start throwing questions at you. The first question is, "How many pipes". Note that there is no question mark after this question. Since you are reading this, you won't call us about this intentional oversight, but some people will, and we'll snicker while they lie about reading the documentation file. Listen, programming is tedious sometimes, and we have to have some fun. If you want a question mark, they only cost $30.00, and we'll send you four other neat utilities for calculating open channel flow, wier angles, and weir outflows for various pool depths. (no lie) If you remind us, we'll consider sending a grate outflow utility at no extra charge. There's more as well. Back to the program. After the prompt, you will see a cursor below, waiting for you to type in a number. If you type in letters, you will get a little error box, and be returned to where you were when you made your error. If you want to calculate 4 pipes, type in 4, and press [ENTER]. Depending on what you typed, you will go through the following prompts one or more times. You will see something like, "Pipe 1", and underneath that, "Type of pipe (ex. CMP)?". See, we can do question marks! Whatever you type in here will appear after the size of your pipe, like 18" CMP. We allow you five letters, so don't attempt anything like, "Bituminous coated corrugated metal pipe". Use BCCMP instead. Next you see, "Diameter of pipe (in.):". Just type in the number of your choice, but use inches, if you want your calculations to work properly. The next prompt is, "Length of pipe (ft.):". Use feet, please, and just the number, without "ft.", or anything else. Decimals are fine, but we must warn you, only the first 15 digits are going to be significant. Next you see, "Vertical drop (ft.):". Same thing as before with the length. Now you see, "Roughness coeff.:". If you need to, get an engineering book and look this up. This will probably be a decimal number, like ".025". You will cycle through these questions, for the number of pipes you decided to calculate, and then you will immediately get your report. Also, if you asked to make a file, it will be created for you. Your report will look something like this: Pipe # 1 Type: 24 in. CMP Length = 100.00 ft. Height = 5.00 Slope = 5.00% Q (CFS) at full flow = 28.56 Flow Velocity (Ft./Sec) = 9.17 Page 2 Now, the file will only have the pipe info, but your window will have scroll bars, and will contain all your inputs, etc. If you want to save all of this stuff, you can use normal Windows techniques to mark all of the text in the window, and copy it to the clipboard, where you can insert it into any report, desktop publisher, etc. Well, that it, but what do you want for free? Seriously, we wanted to supply this little utility to all of you, so that you could see how some simple utilities can be run inside Windows, and how they can supply information to other Windows applications. We have lots more stuff for sale, from small, inexpensive engineering utilities, to big, expensive, full-featured CAD/Survey programs. We also take requests. Today, it seems that most programmers want you to change how you work, to fit their program. We are just the opposite. We'll change our programs to fit how you work, unless you are 'way off line. Most of the time we find, that what you want, is what most other people want, and what they will buy. It's an old story, but true. The customer is always right. We call it the Golden Rule, "The guy with all the gold, makes the rules.". Our customers are "golden" to us, and we value their input. Who are we? M & B Software 1281 Monfort Road Lawrenceville, GA 30245 404-962-9588 Developer of: "The Survey Advantage System" Call us, and you will talk to a programmer, we promise. If you ask for John Moll, or Dennis Bentley, you'll talk to an owner. Phones are answered 7 a.m. to 10 p.m. EST. BBS access is available, but our board is private to our customers only, for downloading the latest code. If there is something you are looking for, give us a call. We may already have it, and if not, we just might write it! BIGTIME DISCLAIMER This software is free, and carries no warranty of any kind. M & B makes no claim as to the functionality or suitability of this software for any purpose. Any user should beware that the source code was provided with this program, and may have been modified by others. To obtain an original copy of this program, send $5.00 for disk, postage and handling to the address listed above. Page 3