Power transformer is very user-unfriendly

[Lilalaunekuh]

Just now, beowulf2010 said:

I dunno. It's only 1KJ. That 2.5 seconds of a Dupe running on a manual generator. 

I tend to feel that that tiny bit of energy "costs" a little bit less than the extra 15Kg of refined metal and 50Kg of raw metal required for the way I build my shutoff transformers. 

This being said, I use both versions depending on if the smart battery is beside or above/below the transformer. 

1KJ each time you deactivate the transformer can add up to a lot of lost energy ...

(Would love if the lost energy would at least show up in the report^^)

[beowulf2010]

1 minute ago, Lilalaunekuh said:

1KJ each time you deactivate the transformer can add up to a lot of lost energy ...

(Would love if the lost energy would at least show up in the report^^)

Very true. That's why I actually went back to using the shutoffs about half the time, determined by space constraints. 

[scaldinghotcarl]

Someone riddle me this. Why is this heavi-wire plate taking damage?

https://prnt.sc/jxpmvc

https://prnt.sc/jxq0kc

[SchlauFuchs]

This threat is very informative. But I do not get the math completely. If a Power transformer is capable of feeding 2kW and a Battery on top of that are feeding into a 2kw grid with consumers having a total max consume >2kw, wouldn't that damage the wires?

[watermelen671]

On 6/19/2018 at 2:49 AM, KittenIsAGeek said:

during the Power update...

Power update? Don't you mean the Thermal Upgrade?

[Zarquan]

6 hours ago, Yunru said:

Dunno, that sounds like an exploit...

 

 

On topic: Can anyone explain why it only provides 1k unless there's a battery present, from an in-game narrative?

It could be considered to be like an insufficient capacitor. If the aquatuner needs power in bursts rather than a constant stream, then the capacitor would be drained and the aquatuner's burst use of power wouldn't work properly and the aquatuner shuts down.  By putting in a battery, the capacitor is essentially has improved capacity.  When the aquatuner isn't pulling power, the capacitor can fill the battery.  Then the battery can handle the full load of the aquatuner's burst.  It could also be looked at like a car with a lousy alternator.  The car might still work as long as there is a good battery to even it out, but without the battery, the alternator can't run the engine.

[Albryant]

What is the old way of hooking up transformers and how does that differ from using it's automation port?

[SchlauFuchs]

without automation they would be permanently turned on. with automation you can signal them to shut down, and the smart battery is able to send a "I'm full" signal

[ShadowOfALegend]

I have a coal generator connected with close to 2k watts of power without overburdening the wiring thanks to 3 transformers with smart batteries automated to unplug power to divert power should it ever be over taxed. Adding an auto sweeper to the generator just adds more to efficiency.

All you need is a NOT gate, some automation wiring and a power shutoff and the rest should be history

[PhailRaptor]

3 hours ago, scaldinghotcarl said:

Someone riddle me this. Why is this heavi-wire plate taking damage?

https://prnt.sc/jxpmvc

https://prnt.sc/jxq0kc

I'm not sure why it's taking damage, but I know that attempting to connect a Joint Plate junction port directly do a device, when it even forms a connection at all, behaves very wonky.  Try moving the Joint Plate over 1 tile to either side and see if it continues.

[Mlah]

3 hours ago, scaldinghotcarl said:

Someone riddle me this. Why is this heavi-wire plate taking damage?

https://prnt.sc/jxpmvc

https://prnt.sc/jxq0kc

Do you have any normal wires on the left side of that transformer? ONI doesn't actually calculate the path current takes. The game simply takes all of the consumers connected to a circuit and checks it against the lowest rated wire on that circuit. A circuit being every wire and device connected together. If the power usage is too high it overloads a wire on the circuit even if logically there would be no current through it. Here is an example. Despite the pumps being connected with conductive wire which can handle 2kw the short little stub will still overload even though it isn't connected to anything. I would suspect that either you have some stray wires on the ends of your heavy watt plates or another part of the circuit is drawing more than 10 kW and that is simply where it chose to overload.

[Sevio]

6 hours ago, Lilalaunekuh said:

The transformer automation port had a good intention, but isn´t as useful as you would think. Before we had an automation port on the power tansformer, we used a power shutoff before the transformer.

=> Now keep in mind that everytime you deactivate the automation port of the power transformer you "delete" the stored energy (1KJ)

(The old way is still superior and renders the "new" automation port a bit useless)

Ah thanks for the reminder about that, I remember checking out the automation port for transformers when I first got back into ONI since automation and that was probably the reason I refrained from using it.

[scaldinghotcarl]

2 hours ago, PhailRaptor said:

I'm not sure why it's taking damage, but I know that attempting to connect a Joint Plate junction port directly do a device, when it even forms a connection at all, behaves very wonky.  Try moving the Joint Plate over 1 tile to either side and see if it continues.

I ended up doing that and it fixed it. Seems weird that you can't place the plate there after the generator, but somehow I must have got the generator there before the plate.

[The Flying Fox]

5 hours ago, SchlauFuchs said:

This threat is very informative. But I do not get the math completely. If a Power transformer is capable of feeding 2kW and a Battery on top of that are feeding into a 2kw grid with consumers having a total max consume >2kw, wouldn't that damage the wires?

Well, here's the thing.  Batteries don't count as consumer on a grid.  Thus, a battery on circuit can charge at the full rate the transformer can provide without damaging wires. (5KJ/s)  Or, you could have >2KJ/s of consumers and charge a battery with the remaining 3KJ/s that the transformer provides while still not damaging the wires.  So, only consumers count towards circuit overload. (Transformers also count as a consumer from their high side, btw.  So daisy-chaining transformers can be a bad idea too.)  Another interesting note about transformers is if you have two (Or more) transformers connected to the same circuit on their low sides, they split the power demand across them.

 

Using this information, you can actually create a whole grid system without needing heavy-watt wire.  To make myself feel better about it's slightly exploitative nature, I used conductive wire instead of normal wire.  

Those 4 transformers all feed onto that central line which makes its way throughout my base and plugs into those switched battery packs.  Those packs separate the consumers from being seen by the central charging wire while the transforms force the batteries to charge when they're in charging mode.  Those packs are designed to only let one battery of the two charge at a time. (Although both can discharge at the same time)  I found out about the transformers sharing the workload when I originally had the steam turbine and 2 hydrogen generators hooked into one transformer.. and that local wire connecting all of the gens and batteries on the high side of the transformer started to over-load... sometimes.  (Which is why there's a damaged wire connecting to the steam turbine!   )  I then experimented and added more transformers, connecting each generator to it's own battery and transformer and it worked!  No more over-loads on the generator (High) side wires.

'

 

[SchlauFuchs]

I still feel somewhat confused. Lets rephrase my question. If I have enough consumers on a grid that would have a potential drain of more than 2kW power and I have a transformer with a 2kW output and a battery with unlimited output (until empty) they can overload the wires. Or where am I wrong? 

[PhailRaptor]

8 minutes ago, SchlauFuchs said:

I still feel somewhat confused. Lets rephrase my question. If I have enough consumers on a grid that would have a potential drain of more than 2kW power and I have a transformer with a 2kW output and a battery with unlimited output (until empty) they can overload the wires. Or where am I wrong? 

It's based on the type of Wire you are using.  Normal Wire can sustain 1 kW of simultaneous devices.  Conductive Wire can sustan 2 kW.  Heavy-Watt and Conductive Heavy-Watt both can sustain 10 kW.

The Battery is only necessary if any single device on the circuit has a consumption of more than 1 kW.  If there is no Battery, and only a single Transformer, devices greater than 1 kW such as the Aquatuner will experience brown-outs whenever they attempt to run, because they are not able to detect enough power (even if there is enough).

[SchlauFuchs]

okay, but two transformers and a battery then could overload the wires?

[PhailRaptor]

10 minutes ago, SchlauFuchs said:

okay, but two transformers and a battery then could overload the wires?

Nope.  Overload is entirely dependent on the consuming devices against the type of Wire.  Batteries are not a factor in the equation.

[SchlauFuchs]

Okay... another attempt to make myself clear: So far I designed my energy grid with up to two transformers feeding a lot of consumers, often more than 2kW potential drain (sometimes 5kW if it was feeding a lot of doors rarely used). By limiting the input to the wire to 2kW using two transformers the wires never get damaged, but some consumers might work unreliably. Until I partition the grid and feed them with their own transformers.

With a battery behind the transformer I cannot allow to have more than 2kW potential total consumption without damaging the grid. 

Am I right so far?

[Mlah]

 That is all correct. With no batteries your transformers will never be able to output more than 2 kW per tick meaning if you are using conductive wire you are safe. If you put a battery behind the transformer however you can run into problems as your transformers will fill the battery and then as long as your batteries are charged your consumers are able to draw any wattage they want from the battery itself, potentially overloading your circuit.

[The Flying Fox]

19 hours ago, SchlauFuchs said:

Okay... another attempt to make myself clear: So far I designed my energy grid with up to two transformers feeding a lot of consumers, often more than 2kW potential drain (sometimes 5kW if it was feeding a lot of doors rarely used). By limiting the input to the wire to 2kW using two transformers the wires never get damaged, but some consumers might work unreliably. Until I partition the grid and feed them with their own transformers.

With a battery behind the transformer I cannot allow to have more than 2kW potential total consumption without damaging the grid. 

Am I right so far?

 

18 hours ago, Mlah said:

 That is all correct. With no batteries your transformers will never be able to output more than 2 kW per tick meaning if you are using conductive wire you are safe. If you put a battery behind the transformer however you can run into problems as your transformers will fill the battery and then as long as your batteries are charged your consumers are able to draw any wattage they want from the battery itself, potentially overloading your circuit.

No, this is wrong, sorry to burst your bubble.

 

In here, wires on both sides of the transformer are taking damage even though there's only a battery on the high side of the transformer.  As you can see, the low side (local circuit) is just over 2000 watts (2040 watts to be exact) and right after I put in that last refrigerator the wires started taking damage.  One transformer can power all the refrigerators because each is under 1000 watts that the transformer can supply in 1 tick.  But, as been stated, the transformer will happily provide up to 5000 watts every second for the stuff on the local circuit and it will start to over-load wires if the load goes over what the wire is rated for.

 

The only things that you really need to know is the limitation that transformers can't power stuff over 1000 watts because it's limited to 1000 watts every game tick, (There's 5 ticks per-second which makes 5000 watts per-second.) so either add a battery to the low side or another transformer.  The other thing to know is that batteries don't count as a consumers while excess power charges them.

 

 

 

[SchlauFuchs]

9 hours ago, The Flying Fox said:

The only things that you really need to know is the limitation that transformers can't power stuff over 1000 watts because it's limited to 1000 s every game tick, (There's 5 ticks per-second which makes 5000 watts per-second.) so either add a battery to the low side or another transformer.  The other thing to know is that batteries don't count as a consumers while excess power charges them.

But even if it is so that a transformer can only provide 1kW at any any tick, then two transformer could not provide more than 2kW at any tick and isn't that the capacity limit definition of conductive wire? 

[The Flying Fox]

7 hours ago, SchlauFuchs said:

But even if it is so that a transformer can only provide 1kW at any any tick, then two transformer could not provide more than 2kW at any tick and isn't that the capacity limit definition of conductive wire? 

Right, they can only provide 1kW per-tick, but they provide 5kW over a second and -that's- what's important here.  Clearly you can see in the picture I provided that a -single- transformer can provide power to all of those refrigerators.  The 1kW per tick only matters to consumers that need more then 1kW.  They look at the local circuit per-tick and basically ask, "Is there more then 1kW for me to run?"  If there's only a transformer with no battery, the answer is no.  If there's a battery or 2 transformers then the answer is yes.  As far as I know, there's no limit to how much/fast you can discharge or charge a battery.

 

Basically, stop concentrating on the game ticks.  The actual power draw that you see and what over-loads a circuit or not is based on 'Ticks', it's based on Watts meaning Joules/Second

[Kabrute]

in which case 2 transformers would be necessary to run an aquatuner without a battery, yet you can(tested this) run 5 tepidizers on one transformer without a battery

[Mlah]

1 hour ago, The Flying Fox said:

Basically, stop concentrating on the game ticks.  The actual power draw that you see and what over-loads a circuit or not is based on 'Ticks', it's based on Watts meaning Joules/Second

In which case the power transformers behavior is even more confusing and poorly labeled. If power draw truly is based on the total Joules/sec yet consumers draw in one big gulp it means they must only draw once per tick otherwise everythings power draw would be quadrupled. So why then should the power transformer be special and draw power ever tick?