Issue with transformers and HW [SOLVED]

[Darkfoxx117]

Those were my thoughts too.... Initially it was wired wrong but it took rebuilding the structure to rectify it.

just like if you put the wrong liquid in your hydroponics farm tile you have to rebuild it but that's just coz the 'empty storage' button doesn't work dupes just ignore it. 

[Guest]

30 minutes ago, Darkfoxx117 said:

Those were my thoughts too.... Initially it was wired wrong but it took rebuilding the structure to rectify it.

just like if you put the wrong liquid in your hydroponics farm tile you have to rebuild it but that's just coz the 'empty storage' button doesn't work dupes just ignore it. 

That's interesting. The transformator stores power. Is it perhaps possible that the game stored 1 kW power in there while it can only store 20kW (yes, that's not really what happens in real life) is needed to convert to 1kW, essentially delivering the "wrong" resource hence why it cannot transform?

[Darkfoxx117]

Sounds reasonable I guess. 

[Trego]

On 5/22/2017 at 1:24 PM, Xuhybrid said:

I tried using low to heavy and it kept Overloading the circuit. I had 4 Transformers on almost full load though.

The reason directly connecting low to heavy works sometimes, is because of the way the circuit overloading is checked.  You can have any amount of batteries/generators/transformers on a circuit without overloading it.  This means that heavy wire is nearly useless at this time, as if you setup a circuit with all your generators and batteries on it, and then connect it to local circuits using transformers, which is what most people use heavy wire for, you can simply use regular wire for that circuit instead.  If this is the case, then using a mix of heavy and regular wire works as well, which is what explains the behavior of the OP's circuit above.  A lot of people will connect more than 1kw of stuff directly to their HW circuit, as it is sometimes convenient to do so with pumps/scrubbers etc in the power room/distribution conduit, and as soon as you get above 1kw of constant load on your HW circuit from direct draws, not counting transformers, you need to actually use real HW, which means directly connecting your manual generators as above will no longer work.  I had a similar bug to the OP on my last base; I had something like 15k total generating capacity,  and something like 10-12 transformers hooked in.  What would happen when I looked at the transformer usage was that they would all show the same number, or a few different numbers, all around 500-700, where three of them should have been flat zeroes, some 240, some 480, etc.  Seems like some sort of  error where the data for each transformer is occasionally getting called for the transformer just in front or behind it in the data structure for transformers?  Reading this thread makes me wonder if loading that file and rebuilding every transformer will fix the issue there as well.

[CantBreathe]

Actually this error returned shortly after rebuilding the transformers. It's happened in every new world I've tried to play through, It's happened with or without the direct connection with normal-heavy. It's happened with or without use of wire bridges. It seems like the only constant factor is having multiple transformers connected to the same power grid. There a couple more threads around that discuss this further.

[Kasuha]

1 hour ago, CantBreathe said:

Actually this error returned shortly after rebuilding the transformers. It's happened in every new world I've tried to play through, It's happened with or without the direct connection with normal-heavy. It's happened with or without use of wire bridges. It seems like the only constant factor is having multiple transformers connected to the same power grid. There a couple more threads around that discuss this further.

If you manage to find a way how to replicate it (build this, then that, and then it always works wrong) that would be very welcome. Issues are always hard to fix if it's not clear how the problem occurs. Unfortunately for me transformers worked reliably every single time so far, I am probably not doing the right wrong thing to them.

[hectorzx]

I have the same issue, but i have a liitle more transformers. They all consume the same all the time.

 

Should i reconstruct all of them?

[absimiliard]

Maybe the low > heavy worked because nothing on the low was drawing power, only generators supplying it.  So the low-voltage wire never gets to carry load from the heavy -- it only supplies voltage, and only when the batteries are low.  (and that number of hamster-wheels oughtn't overload a low-voltage wire, right?)

[Trego]

2 hours ago, absimiliard said:

Maybe the low > heavy worked because nothing on the low was drawing power, only generators supplying it.  So the low-voltage wire never gets to carry load from the heavy -- it only supplies voltage, and only when the batteries are low.  (and that number of hamster-wheels oughtn't overload a low-voltage wire, right?)

No, that's not why.  I already explained why, 3 posts above, and you are close, but not quite.

[The Flying Fox]

Well, as far as I can see, I've definitely been bitten by this bug as well.  From what I can see, phantom power loads are happening on random transformers, causing the system to draw far more wattage then it should.  Here is a set of images that document me trying to solve this particular bug, and my save file.  I can tell you it's not caused by the type of wire being used, nor how its hooked up to the transformers.  Nor do wire bridges cause the problem.  The issue is stemming from devices flipping on and off on other circuits.

 

Here's what I started with:

There's 3 natural gas gens and a hydrogen gen just above that first bank of batteries, then a few token batteries after the transformers for buffer.  For some reason, It was almost impossible to charge the main battery bank despite my base literally not having enough equipment running at any one time to be using more wattage then the 3 natural gas gens could provide.  Now notice how I have -all- the transformers disabled, yet somehow, the system thinks I still have 5 all drawing 120 watts, and the three bottom transformers are only hooked to batteries that are fully charged.  Wut?

After much mucking around with them... (Removing as much of the base from the transformers as I could for testing, then removing all the batteries, wire bridges, and hooking continuous drawing space heaters to most of the transformers.  The power line going out that my cursor is over is just for the natural gas filter and pump to run the gens.)  I destroyed and rebuilt the transformers and wires many times and restarted the game.  This still happens.  Notice that two of the transformers appear to be drawing 240w instead of 120w.  I checked the circuits individually and they all say for the space heater circuits 120 watts on each of the local lines, but the heavy-watt wire that feeds the system seems to think two of them are taking 240w instead.

  

More very weird wattage readings from the input power line.  253.3 watts?  How..?  I stress that this doesn't appear to be a problem with the UI window.  I'm like 99% sure what it's trying to say is, in fact, the correct power draw of the system.  If it was just a UI bug, I'm -positive- the batteries in my system would charge properly.

Cut off the natural gas pump, leaving just the filter.  This is when the gas filter wasn't running a packet through it.  Yet the system still thinks it's drawing power.

Reduced down to just 2 transformers, still does it.  Phantom power being drawn when nothing is running on the circuit.  At this point, I was thinking it was the gas filter, so I unhooked that, and ran just the gas pump.

No..   Now its thinking the other transformer is taking 240 watts instead.  

 

Oh, and I switched to normal wire just to rule that out.  Running all those transformers with just the space heaters, no other equipment, works fine.  No phantom wattage draw is seen.  ONLY when you introduce a circuit that has a device (or more) that flips on and off does things start to get funky and the more circuits you have the worse the problem becomes.  It seems whatever is the difference between the peak wattage and your normal wattage draw, it doubles it.  Or, something like that.  Here is my save I was testing it with.  For me, it immediately happens after loading.  If I destroy the transformers and rebuild them, it appears to fix the issue, but then shortly there after, when the circuit with the gas pump fires on, the first circuit will then jump to 240 watts while the gas pump is running.

 

So either you get circuits with random phantom power draw when other circuits have stuff switch off, or when stuff switches on. 

TDAtest.sav