Automation of power generation ?

[Dirmagnos]

Is there any contraption to make generators being turned on/off based on amount of power that batteries have ?

Eg if supply drops below 30 kJ, it turns on an additional generator, if power drops below 25, then one more, etc. And same in reverse.

Ive been trying to come up with anything at all, but fail miserably.

Its nothing big, to be honest, as i tend to build huge battery banks(100+, so to drain them all even at full consumption would take couple cycles), so turning on/off additional generators every now and then is not a problem really. But im wondering if there is any way to completely automate whole process without wasting resources like natural gas.

[GreatGameDota]

Use a manual gen's sensor and make a dupe run over a weight plate than turns on these backup generators for a set time (buffer gate), or use the same thing but have the plate right below the gen (no buffer).

[Saturnus]

With the 1kg/s flow rate I suggest there, you're right on the cusp of 100 batteries heating the water to above 75C before the end of the bank. So you might consider a bit higher water flow rate, or build batteries, at least the last row, of something else than copper/iron. At any rate the water will be completely germ free after a trip through a large sized battery bank of 40+ batteries.

The temperature sensor automation works extremely well to automate the power supply of very large and power hungry set ups with a fairly large battery bank.

[Dirmagnos]

Hmm, that manual generator one is interesting, but still would need adjustment every time i add/take off something major on/from the grid, so its not really an improvement. Plus, dupes already have intelligence of a log(bigger base becomes, more time they spend simply running in circles toilet-food-shower-bed), adding anything to their todo list is not a good idea.

So far simply turning on/off couple additional generators every few cycles is far easier and more effective. But thx for some ideas.

[GuyPerfect]

I trust the devs are aware of the demand for a battery charge sensor Automation component. I also trust that if they didn't have some good reason to refrain from implementing one, they would have by now (maybe they have a different solution in mind?). It'd be nice to get an acknowledgment and rationale from them, though.

Until such a time that it happens, you cannot via Automation unambiguously detect the amount of charge in the batteries on a circuit. You can get a best guess with a thermal sensor, or adaptive performance that requires Duplicant interaction.

[Angelix]

On 26 ноября 2017 г. at 6:21 PM, Dirmagnos said:

Hmm, that manual generator one is interesting, but still would need adjustment every time i add/take off something major on/from the grid, so its not really an improvement. Plus, dupes already have intelligence of a log(bigger base becomes, more time they spend simply running in circles toilet-food-shower-bed), adding anything to their todo list is not a good idea.

So far simply turning on/off couple additional generators every few cycles is far easier and more effective. But thx for some ideas.

when you got plastic you can do other setup(with small air pump). without any dups interaction, but with power need(60w). or you can use Saturnus setup
 

[Saturnus]

In that respect I should mention that the recirculation pump required (to bring the cooling water back to the main system) uses 24W at 1000g/s flow rate which is good for up to about 90 batteries. 40 batteries or less and you probably only need half or less flow rate so you can divide power consumption accordingly.