The delayed status regulator - an interruptor setup

[OxCD]

Hi

 

First of all, the goal of this was (why did I create this) :

Supplying a large amount of battery than can handle at once all bunker doors opening/closing system, with a power plant.

Disconnecting the battery farm from the power plant circuit, when Space Scanners send the active signal (incoming meteors). That was to avoid overloading on the wires from main power circuit.

Reconnecting it, after approximately 30 secs (when doors are fully closed), to recharge the battery farm.

Then doing the same, when Space Scanners send the inactive signal. Disconnecting the battery farm from the main circuit to avoid overloading.

Reconnecting it after approx 30 secs (when doors are fully opened), to recharge.

 

Thas does mean : when the initial incoming signal is active : the power shut-off opens for 30secs, then closes.

When the initial incoming signal is inactive : the power shut-off opens for 30secs, then closes. Same.

Just change filter timing for the delay when incoming signal changes from inactive to active.

Change buffer timing for the delay when incoming signal changes from active to inactive.

Just take off the not gate at the end of the automation line, if you want the opposite (interruptor always opened, and just closed for a set time).

Hope it cans help someone like it does for me.

 

Have a nice day !

[brucemo]

I don't understand this. The top is the input signal run through a NOT gate, and that output and the original signal run through an XOR gate. Does this produce a pulse when the input signal changes or something?

[Saturnus]

So if I get this correct you want it to open for 30 seconds when the signal becomes positive and you want it to open for 30 seconds when the signal becomes negative.

Not sure why an inverted edge detector with a buffer gate wouldn't be a better solution to be honest. This does exactly the same thing.

EDIT: Sorry, accidentally posted a picture of the non-inverted version. This is the correct inverted version.

I must be really slow today. Obviously I should just have removed the NOT from the edge detector output and put a filter gate on instead to save two NOT gates. This works out to be the same.

[brucemo]

Just to let you know, I'm reading this and I care about these gate examples. I figured you had it reversed the first time and almost said something, but I was too unsure of my understanding of the game. I'm trying to do rocket automation and I'm going to make use of this stuff. I like the idea OP had here of cutting out door circuits and letting them run on a battery for a moment, too.

If only there was a refrigerator sensor.

[Saturnus]

3 minutes ago, brucemo said:

If only there was a refrigerator sensor.

In what way?

[brucemo]

It would be nice if I could ask the refrigerator what was in it, not just whether it was full or empty. But this is another topic and I'm still messing with that.

[Gus Smedstad]

19 minutes ago, brucemo said:

If only there was a refrigerator sensor.

Refrigerators behave like smart storage. They give off a signal when full. It's not really an advertised feature, but it's there and I've used it. Handy for shutting off water to my pincha pepper farm when I've got enough of them already.

As for the original topic of the thread - I was sure at some point that I'd run into problems with total power draw when opening bunker doors. There are, after all, potentially a lot of them if  you block off the entire map and open them all at once.

In practice, it hasn't happened, and my main power plant has had no trouble providing enough to open what doors I do have.

 

1 minute ago, brucemo said:

It would be nice if I could ask the refrigerator what was in it, not just whether it was full or empty. 

That would be a different game, since the automation is all completely digital true / false, and there's no provision for carrying more than 1 bit per wire. "What are the contents" would require, what, 4 bits? Maybe 5? A code for every possible edible, cooking ingredient, and medicine, in any case. More if the code included all possible resources like conveyors do.

In practice, you pretty much have to restrict the refrigerator to one item, and then test it's full. Since you rarely care about more than maybe 2 ingredients and one finished food, that's not a huge problem.

[brucemo]

A refrigerator sensor could work like a temperature sensor or a pipe element sensor. You could specify a thing and a quantity and a relation.

[Saturnus]

4 hours ago, brucemo said:

A refrigerator sensor could work like a temperature sensor or a pipe element sensor. You could specify a thing and a quantity and a relation.

You can. Restrict the content to one option.

[OxCD]

18 hours ago, Saturnus said:

So if I get this correct you want it to open for 30 seconds when the signal becomes positive and you want it to open for 30 seconds when the signal becomes negative.

Not sure why an inverted edge detector with a buffer gate wouldn't be a better solution to be honest. This does exactly the same thing.

EDIT: Sorry, accidentally posted a picture of the non-inverted version. This is the correct inverted version.

I must be really slow today. Obviously I should just have removed the NOT from the edge detector output and put a filter gate on instead to save two NOT gates. This works out to be the same.

That does prove something : you're far better than me with automation ^^

 

Thanks for the tip ! I'll save metal then

[Saturnus]

14 minutes ago, OxCD said:

That does prove something : you're far better than me with automation ^^

Thanks for the tip ! I'll save metal then

That may be but that knowledge is entirely useless without people suggesting problems they wish resolved such as this.

And I do commend you for actually finding a solution of your own. Either works flawlessly but mine is obviously a lot more compact due to the use of the edge detector.

[Gus Smedstad]

It never really occurred to me to use the delay in a gate to make an edge detector like that. Internal timing isn't something I normally consider for logic circuits.

In practice edge detection hasn't been that important to my designs. This may be an oversight on my part, there may be places where it would be useful and I'm not doing it.

[Saturnus]

Maybe at this point I may interject what a edge detector is so those who don't know might follow along.

An edge detector is a circuit that detects the change from one state to another on the input and translate that change in input to a short pulse on the output. This is useful in many circuits that involves XOR flip-flops or memory gates.

Anyway, common for all 3 types is that they exploit (in the not breaking any game mechanics kind of way) that a NOT gate very shortly (one pulse duration) is in the same state on both input and output while it changes state. This is then picked up by the gate used after.

Here are the 3 types of edge detectors; a) positive edge detector that only detects when the input changes from negative to positive and gives off a positive pulse (turns on briefly), b) negative edge detector that only detects when the input changes from positive to negative and gives off a negative pulse (turns off briefly), and c) (either) edge detector that detect whenever the input changes state one way or the other and outputs a negative pulse (turns off briefly).

[Gus Smedstad]

Here's my meteor detector / bunker door setup. It involves an edge detector, from 0 to 1.

It's designed to close the bunker doors at the latest possible safe time. It has two main parts, and one edge detector.

Accuracy of meteor detection is between 1 and 200 seconds warning (worst case) to exactly 200 seconds (best case, 100% scanner network). The times here assume a six-scanner network at 100% effectiveness, but can (and were, historically) be lower for a lower quality network with more uncertainty.

The simplest setup would be to just control the doors directly with the scanner. But if the scanner detects meteors 200 seconds in advance, and the doors take 38 seconds to close, the doors are closing 112 seconds early, blocking access to space. Thus this circuit.

The right side is basic meteor detection, with a safety check if the network has been offline. While the supporting doors are open to allow regolith to fall through, the scanners aren't working, and we cannot rely on a full 200 second advance warning. Thus for 150 seconds after the scanners were disabled, the circuit reacts immediately to meteor detection.

If the supporting doors haven't been open recently, the filter gate delays detection of meteors by 150 seconds, so the doors start to close 50 seconds before the meteors arrive. Technically 38 seconds might be enough, though in practice it felt like I needed more.

The left side controls the supporting doors. The edge detection is "the bunker doors are opening." The AND gate test if the doors are currently getting an OPEN signal (left wire), and up to 50 seconds ago, were closed (right wire). This allows 38 seconds for the bunker doors to open, and 12 seconds for the regolith to fall through the bunker doors and past our scanner.