What is wrong with this power setup?

[Izzy248]

Still new to this game and havent nearly figured everything out yet. Currently doing a test build colony for the Occupation Update and I dont know what it is but Wires seem more sensitive in this update. Can someone tell me whats wrong with my power set up that wires keep breaking. Suggestions, recommendations, techniques, etc.

[Kabrute]

unhook kitchen from central grid, you are double feeding central rail from 2 transformers
I would break it up here

[Izzy248]

The problem existed before that though. I just recently added the extra transformer outside the kitchen because I thought it would ease the stress if there were 2 incoming power sources contributing

Broke it up and the problem still seems to persist.

[Kabrute]

by moving the kitchens draw off the rest of the base should even out, having it on 2 feeds lets you split it to 2 transformers so split it, divide the draw by divinding the sections, the kitchen being so tight makes it an obvious cut out In truth I would build a separate power system alongside your current one that runs off 4 transformers feeding separate areas,(kitchen, industrial, housing, spare) or runs off of conductive wire instead of basic wire.

[Lifegrow]

You're using the basic wire, which can only allow a pull of 1000w on the ciruit.

You seem to have quite a few machines on the same piece of wire - regardless of having two transformers. Until you get into the later wiring options - i.e. conductive - try and keep your circuits capped at less than 1000w max draw. That way even if you have machines like the massage table that MAY not get used all at once for the majority of the time - if/when they ever do get used, your wires will never overload.

Once you start using conductive wiring - this gets a lot easier with the 2kw limit instead.

As a general rule of thumb your conventional wiring should be :  *[Power gen] -> *[battery] -> *[transformer] -> ^[battery] -> ^[consumers]

* = can all be connected with heavy watt.

^ = can be kept as normal/conductive wiring and kept below 1  or 2kw limits accordingly.  

Hope that helps.

[Izzy248]

Just broke it at that spot and they are still strained after a couple cycles

[Kabrute]

without access to a save file I can't give more detailed advice

[Keyimin]

I was in the process of replying when I saw Life responded. His post provides the answer. You have 720W from your three massage tables alone. You'll need to break out your consumers into separate "circuits" to make sure that each circuit is only drawing that max of 1,000W.

[Izzy248]

5 minutes ago, Lifegrow said:

You're using the basic wire, which can only allow a pull of 1000w on the ciruit.

You seem to have quite a few machines on the same piece of wire - regardless of having two transformers. Until you get into the later wiring options - i.e. conductive - try and keep your circuits capped at less than 1000w max draw. That way even if you have machines like the massage table that MAY not get used all at once for the majority of the time - if/when they ever do get used, your wires will never overload.

Once you start using conductive wiring - this gets a lot easier with the 2kw limit instead.

As a general rule of thumb your conventional wiring should be :  *[Power gen] -> *[battery] -> *[transformer] -> ^[battery] -> ^[consumers]

* = can all be connected with heavy watt.

^ = can be kept as normal/conductive wiring and kept below 1  or 2kw limits accordingly.  

Hope that helps.

So basically each power source can only handle a short handful of machines at once? Like 3-5? Wow...I thought you were capable of doing more than that...

[Lifegrow]

No, here - this vids a little out dated but should help you understand the basics - little disclaimer in advance, bridges have totally changed since this was recorded, and we also have conductive wires now. Other than that hopefully this should help  : 

Christ I forgot I had no hair back then

I look like a nerdy ruffian....  

[PhailRaptor]

3 minutes ago, Izzy248 said:

So basically each power source can only handle a short handful of machines at once? Like 3-5? Wow...I thought you were capable of doing more than that...

It's not the source of the power.  It's the wires carrying it.  You have the right idea using Heavy Watt between your generators and batteries, then connecting your Transformers to that line.

[Izzy248]

Just now, PhailRaptor said:

It's not the source of the power.  It's the wires carrying it.  You have the right idea using Heavy Watt between your generators and batteries, then connecting your Transformers to that line.

Yeah I know thats what I mean. From what Im getting it seems as though you need to have multiple sources lines up throughout your base to effective run it. I was hoping you could have 1 power generating room outside of hydrogen/natural gas/etc generators. And since conductive is quite late game for a noob like me, it seems Ill have to build multiple power stations around the base to keep it running effectively I think.

[Kabrute]

you can you just need a third transformer to handle all the load you are trying to support

[Keyimin]

Just now, Izzy248 said:

Yeah I know thats what I mean. From what Im getting it seems as though you need to have multiple sources lines up throughout your base to effective run it. I was hoping you could have 1 power generating room outside of hydrogen/natural gas/etc generators. And since conductive is quite late game for a noob like me, it seems Ill have to build multiple power stations around the base to keep it running effectively I think.

Nope, you can still have one power-generation room. You just need to arrange it so that you have a single "circuit" running off that power-generation via transformer > battery > consumers as Life was explaining above.

So you could have a giant room of generators all connected. And have them all connected to batteries that connect to transformers. But then connect each transformer separately to a battery with your regular wire. And then run that wire into your base to your consumers, keeping each of those transformer circuits separate. Now, each of those circuits can power 1,000W's worth of consumers.

1 minute ago, Kabrute said:

you can you just need a third transformer to handle all the load you are trying to support

The problem isn't the transformers, and adding a third transformer alone won't solve it. It's that all of the 1,000W wire is connected to over 1,000W's worth of consumers. From what I could quickly see on the screeny, there's 1340W of consumers NOT including the 720W of massage tables.

[Kabrute]

I wouldn't use the battery after the transformer though personally that helps break things in my experience.  My setups now only run one smart battery right at the generator so it only produces the power needed by the base, then run as many genes as needed like the above setup with transformers breaking out to feed groups as key suggests

[Lifegrow]

10 minutes ago, Kabrute said:

I wouldn't use the battery after the transformer though personally that helps break things in my experience.  My setups now only run one smart battery right at the generator so it only produces the power needed by the base, then run as many genes as needed like the above setup with transformers breaking out to feed groups as key suggests

Then you're not using transformers to their full potential. Without the battery on the consumer side of the transformer, you're hard gimping yourself...

Heres some old examples :

Power gen :

Follow the heavy watt wire to the transformers - note the batteries for each consumer line, but also a battery back on the main heavy-watt line. Consumer batteries will always fill before main battery bank : 

Wherever you see heavy watt wire will either lead to transformers, power gen, or my main battery bank : 

 

 

[Izzy248]

21 minutes ago, Lifegrow said:

No, here - this vids a little out dated but should help you understand the basics - little disclaimer in advance, bridges have totally changed since this was recorded, and we also have conductive wires now. Other than that hopefully this should help  : 

Christ I forgot I had no hair back then

I look like a nerdy ruffian....  

Watched the video. It was insightful. I think my main confusing, or at least my hope was that I had this misconception that I could have 1 power room that would supply my whole base or at least most of my base. Didnt figure each line of wire can only power 3-5 machines at any given time.

P.S a little confused however by the "I forgot I had no hair back then" comment lol. It looks like you have quite a bit to me. Or maybe just not enough to your own liking.

 

[Lifegrow]

See above reply buddy - You can have big old power gen setups - you just need to run them on heavy watt wire and branch off multiple transformers wherever you need a circuit for consumers.

I just linked you some pics of one of my last stream bases - we foolishly decided to build a monster tall/narrow base which needed a lot of wiring - my power generation was at both the upper most and southernmost parts of my base (NGG plant, and a coal plant)

 

[Izzy248]

Yeah I noticed the pics...thats quite a lot. Definitely a bit to mull over

[Kabrute]

long story short break it up into separate circuits and control it yourself so it doesn't go over the 1kw limit per circuit by not having the battery after the transformer it force gimps the line into never carrying more than the 1kj per tick provided by the transformer, at first this caused problems but after a few cycles things levels out and only if something like a tepidizer kicks in do I ever see any battery blinks . But it never blows my wires Its almost too easy now because the only waste power I get comes from manual gens and the 4 smart batts feeding the base. o.o

[Lifegrow]

3 minutes ago, Kabrute said:

long story short break it up into separate circuits and control it yourself so it doesn't go over the 1kw limit per circuit by not having the battery after the transformer it force gimps the line into never carrying more than the 1kj per tick provided by the transformer, at first this caused problems but after a few cycles things levels out and only if something like a tepidizer kicks in do I ever see any battery blinks . But it never blows my wires Its almost too easy now because the only waste power I get comes from manual gens and the 4 smart batts feeding the base. o.o

Kabrute, you've just shown in another thread that you don't understand basic wiring theory - yet you've come back into this thread and amended your post to show that you do. There really isn't a competition on the forums for "most echoed poster" - you can take a little time out occasionally  

[Keyimin]

I mocked up a very quick arrangement in debug for ya to try to simplify it (this is for nothing other than illustrative purposes lol)

So pretend the main 3-layer box on top is your power-gen building, and the box below that is your base. There are three 1,000W circuits going into the base and a backup battery bank.

You should be aware that batteries do drain over time, so big battery banks are no longer efficient. However, since you're new to the game and worried about keeping things low-tech at this stage, I'm not addressing smart batteries or automation or any of the additional tools we can use to mitigate wasted power and achieve efficiency. This is just to give you an idea of how a power-gen building and separate transformer circuits can work.

Hope it helps

[Izzy248]

23 hours ago, Keyimin said:

I mocked up a very quick arrangement in debug for ya to try to simplify it (this is for nothing other than illustrative purposes lol)

So pretend the main 3-layer box on top is your power-gen building, and the box below that is your base. There are three 1,000W circuits going into the base and a backup battery bank.

You should be aware that batteries do drain over time, so big battery banks are no longer efficient. However, since you're new to the game and worried about keeping things low-tech at this stage, I'm not addressing smart batteries or automation or any of the additional tools we can use to mitigate wasted power and achieve efficiency. This is just to give you an idea of how a power-gen building and separate transformer circuits can work.

Hope it helps

Alright thanks. I think I get the gist of it now. And yeah Ive noticed batteries dont really hold a charge and Im most certainly not able to deal with Automation quite yet lol

[Izzy248]

Alright so I started a new colony and Ive got a pretty good set up going so far. Nothing has broken itself just yet like last time and everything seems to be going fairly well. I believe I followed everyones advice here to a t. Well I actually forgot to put the batteries on the other side but Ill most likely be using the room above my kitchen for that. Ill put some Batteries in that that the Transformers on the other side will feed into and then those Batteries will feed my base independently. But yeah, I hope Im doing this correctly now. Also I have a question, should I be concerned that the wire shown is strained? The lines on it should only be consuming 660W for its respective devices...is something amiss here?

[PhailRaptor]

You're doing it exactly right!

"Strained" is always wonky when a Transformer is involved.  It's just the way the Transformer is coded.  It only allows out exactly the amount of power that the circuit is currently using.  So even if you only have a single ceiling light consuming, what 3 W of power?  The circuit will appear to be "strained".