Loading balancing 5x 20 kW lines - Anyone has a solution ?

[babba]

Maybe you have the solution to my problem and like to help out on this ?

I have got 5x: 20kW Power Stations - A,B,C,D,E

I can build a power ring ( consisting of 5x 20kW power lines ) where all consumers are hooked up to, the total consumer amount is 300 to 1000 stations. Its currently 300 consumers, but will get more over time.

Each single power station ( A,B,C,D,E ) is connected to 1 of the 5 ring lines

The power ring supply I can build across the entire map is 5x 20kW lines in this example.

How can I load balance between the power ring lines, without exceeding 20kW on a single power supply line ?

The idea is that the 5 power lines load balance constantly between each other and level out an average load distribution between all 5x 20 kW lines, but avoiding a single line damage meltdown by exceeding 20kW is important.

So instead of having...

Line 1: 7kW Line 2: 0 kW Line 3: 12 kW # Line 4: 20 kW # Line 5: 18.77 kW ( Total of 5 lines = 57.77 kW )

...each line should have:

Line 1: 11.55 kW # Line 2: 11.55 kW # Line 3: 11.55 kW # Line 4: 11.55 kW # Line 5: 11.55 kW ( 57.77/5 = 11.55 kW average load per line ). This is the only goal for me to achieve now

--------------------

Additional notes - Later in the game I will have 20x or up to 50x 20KW Power stations, so the option of scaling is important ( I would later build 20x or up to 50x 20KW ring lines, the question of load distribution between the lines remains the same ). How to branch from my ring system to the consumers is not a question now, for me the load balancing between the ring lines is the big question for me ? 

The hundreds of consumers dynamically request a total jumping between 10 to 1000 kW, I like to build a ring line with dynamic load balancing as I can then fastly see how much more lines I want to build and add to the ring system and so that I can fastly see whats really going on in terms of map power. The ring system also has the advantage that I can fastly build up to 50 ring lines, a big ring for the entire map, where each line can have a standby or active 20 kW substation. Each ring line gets one dedicated 20 kW station ( 10x Petro Generators ).

BTW I would welcome a Power Load Sensor for power lines from Klei, if one does not want to mess with a ton of circuitry automation or mess with battery charge values for automation.

Any help is welcome, thank you.

Example of a 20 kW substation supply block for one 20kW ring line.

The question: How to dynamically load balance between 5 example lines ? ...Without exceeding 20 kW on a single line. These lines I call my "Ring system".

[Sigma Cypher]

You can make 10 unique pairs of lines with 5 lines (5!/(5-2)!) so we need 10 power shutoffs to connect all the lines with each other line.

My thought was 4 smart batteries on each line, each triggering at different levels (say, 80, 60, 40, 20) to activate 4 power shutoffs in succession. 

The other part needed to make this work is a large power transformer in front of the 4 smart batteries.  The purpose of the PT is to limit the power out to 20kW on each line.  I saw that large power transformers can supply 20kW in this thread: 

 

I started to make what I am describing but ran into a problem when I discovered there are no heavy watt wire bridges.  There might be a way to route such a thing without overlapping wires but ... I dunno, maybe Eagle will do it.  I'll check.  OK I checked - you can do it if you wrap all the way around the load, or where the smaller wires start.  It's a rat's nest though.

[Lilalaunekuh]

If you want to load balance you need to "sense" the power consumption

=> Like sigma cypher said you would need a smart battery for this task

 

So you would be forced to "group" some consumers to reduce the overhead or waste a huge amount of space.

(Not even talking about the heat ...)

To "sense" power consumption and connect to the right ring line you would need at least:

- ">1" smart battery (for bigger "groups" a more accurate sensor would be achievable by increasing the amount of smart batteries)

- n (count of ring lines; here = 5) power shutoffs

- 1 power transformer

 

 

My solution would be a timed system:

Build a some local batteries and use a clock sensor to connect to each buffer ring line in a round robin manner.

=> To handle load spikes you would be forced build a centralized automation which limits the amount of concurrent active transformers.

(But if you want to scale it you have to build a real adder to manage the amount of incoming signals ^^)

[Oozinator]

2 hours ago, babba said:

I have got 5x: 20kW Power Stations - A,B,C,D,E

..amount is 300 to 1000 stations. Its currently 300 consumers.

 

[Lilalaunekuh]

2 hours ago, babba said:

or up to 50x 20KW ring lines

[Saturnus]

Here you go. Any wire can transport 100KW or a MW for that matter using this principle.

Demonstrated here by 2x 11.52KW circuits connected together to have 0W load.

This is the "secret sauce" that makes it all possible. The good old switched capacitor power supply. In this case capacitor equals battery.

Here's the total load btw

[Kabrute]

did they ever fix "not-looping" a power shut-off?

[Saturnus]

1 minute ago, Kabrute said:

did they ever fix "not-looping" a power shut-off?

Dunno. Haven't tried in ages. The solution I posted here is pure vanilla. No exploits of any kind.

[Kabrute]

I know, staged circuit interrupt, kinda helped design the principle back in the day....

[Saturnus]

Just now, Kabrute said:

I know, staged circuit interrupt, kinda helped design the principle back in the day....

I know. Others might not though. And then players new to the forum will look at it and think there must be an exploit involved when it's just rather basic electronic engineering at work.

[Sigma Cypher]

Would you mind explaining the basic electronic engineering principle involved?  I'm slow but trainable.

Oh - and what is the smart battery set to if that matters?

[Kabrute]

if the load determines the draw then gating the load behind a switch will prevent anything beyond the switch from seeing the load.  By staggering between 2 circuits(batteries) the load always sees a full battery and the gene is always filling the non-loaded battery.  Smart batteries not required but you could expand the principle to tie to the smart battery to the disconnect cycle to load up a series of power banks from one central rail....

[Saturnus]

35 minutes ago, Sigma Cypher said:

Would you mind explaining the basic electronic engineering principle involved?  I'm slow but trainable.

Oh - and what is the smart battery set to if that matters?

Let's take the last part first. You need to set it to more than P/Cf, where P=power or load, f=frequency, and C=battery capacity on each phase. You can also write it as Ps/C, where s=delay. The circuit has 4 logic gates in series so the total delay is 0.4s, or 2.5Hz. So if you want the full 20KW wire load capacity, and you have 40KJ capacity that means you need to set the battery to >20% (20KW/40KJ*2.5Hz).

@Kabrute Explained the first part pretty well above. The trick is that charging a battery is not considered a load in the game. So if you charge one battery at a time, and switch between them so that when one battery charges, you have a load on the other battery at the same time, you have a system that doesn't see the load directly.

[Sigma Cypher]

OK thanks.  It's like switching battery thing here sort of.

 But there is some fancier logic in your design that I don't understand yet.  I think you've given me enough to get started though.  Thanks very much.

[Kabrute]

same thing, yes

 

[babba]

I would like to thank you all for your input 

What is the best way to limit a line to 20 kW? ... Without using parallel setup transformers and if possible, without using more than 3 logic modules? 

The more automation is used, the slower the game gets. Ive already got more than 100 transformers in the map & 200 batteries. It would really help to know what the most simple way is to limit a power line to 20kW. Then it wouldn't matter if a 1000kW is in front of a line, if the cable would only let 20 kW through.

4 minutes ago, babba said:

 

 

[Saturnus]

I think the first instance on the forum is this

 

[Sigma Cypher]

Just put a large power transformer in the line.  Output is limited to It limits the output to whatever the wire can take or to 20 kW if you have heavy watt wire on the output.  I am basing this on the wording in the description and on martoss's reply to the AverageHuman post linked in my first reply.  I could be wrong.  I'm new here.

[babba]

Thanks Sigma I'm afraid that's how I am playing currently. If I somehow could measure the kW on a line and cap it at 20kW, that could be a simple solution for me. Any idea how to cap a line at 20 kW? A line power limiter, that would be great. A solution without transformers and let's say 4 or less circuit modules or something else. It is somehow possible with some of the ONI game content? 

[Kabrute]

without modding transformers or modding in a new transformer  I don't see how your request can be completed, you are basically saying, without the tools for manipulating and limiting power how can I limit power.  I'm sorry but this is more than I can offer beyond hooking a not gate to a shut off then back to itself.

If you were to only put 20kw of draw on a line that is all that it will pull..... so math out your loads and only load a line with 20kw of consumer, otherwise any downstream battery will allow excess draw from the battery....

@Saturnus I beat @R9MX4 by a week, check the dates

[Sigma Cypher]

 I was under the impression that the power transformers were load limiters by design.  After all, the description says "Protects from overloading by increasing or decreasing power flow."  Some forum posts suggest that the transformers do indeed work like this provided you don't put batteries on the load side.  So I did a little test to verify this.  It appears that it does not limit power flow to prevent overloading -- see first picture (so my suggestion to put a PT in the line won't work).

I was curious about @Kabrute not gate shutoff thing so I tried it with a 28kW load.  It works in the sense that the wire does not get overload damage even though it is overloaded for one tick, and the tepidizers are on half the time I think (see picture 2).

 

[Kabrute]

if you let the load run until the transformers are dry then I wonder if you would start seeing intermittent power failures among your bank of tepidizers, I wonder how long you let that test run for.
on a whim, move the shutoff up 1 space and give it a power pigtail hooked to the line.


image courtesy of @R9MX4

 

also read the power when doing the test to determine the transformers protective capacity

also it looks like your using a large transformer in the first image, switch to a small transformer for testing small lines please

[Sigma Cypher]

Of course if I drain the batteries it stops working.  I didn't feel like making 28kW worth of NG's.  But until the batteries drain, the transformers just cycle between 800J and 4000J in about 4 seconds.

Without the not-shutoff on a pigtail: bottom 4 power transformers stay at 800J and the top one cycles between 800 and 4000J.  Once the top transformer fully charges, the last row of tepidizers come on for a tick, draining the top transformer, then it charges back to 4000J.

With the not-shutoff on a pigtail: same as above.  It doesn't appear to have any effect on the circuit (as you would expect I suppose).

With the not-shutoff in series with the load:  It appears I was mistaken about overload damage.  I am getting overload damage now. It takes a while is all.

[Rainbowdesign]

If you tell me how to change:
  public override void DoPostConfigureComplete(GameObject go)
  {
    this.DoPostConfigureComplete(Wire.WattageRating.Max20000, go);
  }

 

I would make the refined heavy watt wire 50kw which may not solve the problem but might help you a bit.

[Craigjw]

I have suggested this before, but pretty heavy conductive wires should hold more current rather than being just pretty.