electricity Electricity tutorial

[martosss]

 @Capsup , yes, for example you can split a 2kW network into 2 circuits, each 1kW, and have smart battery packs between each circuit and the transformer. That way the transformer will only see the batteries. Just substitute the big transformer in my examples with a small one. However, I do recommend a bigger one, since a small one can only power 1 circuit at a time OR charge a battery(at most 1kW supply), and you probably will need to be faster than that if you have 2kW of consumers. But it will work - as you said, with brownouts.

Here is an example from the tutorial:

Just consider 2 of the circuits with the fridges - this is your 2kW circuit - you split it into 2 and put a smart battery + normal battery, then instead of a big transformer you put a small one and it's still working. However, while the transformer is charging the batteries your consumers will be waiting in case the second battery is not charged.

I imagine this might work with atmo suit docks, electric doors(hatches) and sweepers, as they don't work constantly, but they require a lot of power.

[Capsup]

3 minutes ago, martosss said:

I imagine this might work with atmo suit docks, electric doors(hatches) and sweepers, as they don't work constantly, but they require a lot of power.

I love how you managed to think up my exact scenario. I have a bunch of exosuit docks, doors, gas pumps and liquid pumps on a single circuit with my one and only aquatuner. While the aquatuner runs, I often run into overloads on my conductive wire circuit, because there's very intermittenly 2080w of draw and then instantly back down to 1200w. I don't want that to happen, but at the same time I don't care about whether any of these things will stop working for a few seconds. They all have enough of a buffer in their output line to support just that.

So all I need to do is have a single (or two) small transformers with the generators on the high side, then the large battery + smart battery combo on the low side and then the consumers at the other side of the large battery + smart battery combo?

[martosss]

2 minutes ago, Capsup said:

I love how you managed to think up my exact scenario. I have a bunch of exosuit docks, doors, gas pumps and liquid pumps on a single circuit with my one and only aquatuner. While the aquatuner runs, I often run into overloads on my conductive wire circuit, because there's very intermittenly 2080w of draw and then instantly back down to 1200w. I don't want that to happen, but at the same time I don't care about whether any of these things will stop working for a few seconds. They all have enough of a buffer in their output line to support just that.

So all I need to do is have a single (or two) small transformers with the generators on the high side, then the large battery + smart battery combo on the low side and then the consumers at the other side of the large battery + smart battery combo?

I also have a similar case in my base, but without the aqua tuner - it's on a separate circuit(2 of them). In my case I just have a circuit with ~2kW consumers, many of which are working for a short time, so I pray it doesn't overload... and it usually doesn't.

However, simply connecting PT-Smart battery - consumers  to the same circuit doesn't work.  You also need the logic elements  and 4 power shutoffs to switch the batteries when the smart battery is full/empty. Just read the tutorial - the part about smart battery pack.

The final circuit should be (PT-Smart battery) and (battery - consumers) on separate circuits while the smart battery is charging, then PT-battery) and (Smart battery - consumers) on separate circuits when the smart battery is charged.

[Capsup]

20 minutes ago, martosss said:

I also have a similar case in my base, but without the aqua tuner - it's on a separate circuit(2 of them). In my case I just have a circuit with ~2kW consumers, many of which are working for a short time, so I pray it doesn't overload... and it usually doesn't.

However, simply connecting PT-Smart battery - consumers  to the same circuit doesn't work.  You also need the logic elements  and 4 power shutoffs to switch the batteries when the smart battery is full/empty. Just read the tutorial - the part about smart battery pack.

The final circuit should be (PT-Smart battery) and (battery - consumers) on separate circuits while the smart battery is charging, then PT-battery) and (Smart battery - consumers) on separate circuits when the smart battery is charged.

Right yeah, that makes sense. I did read the tutorial but reading it and comprehending it are two entirely different things, and I didn't quite grasp all of it, but seeing the theory applied to a specific scenario that I am familiar with makes it way easier.

But why exactly is it that this setup would work? If at the same time there's a power draw of more than 1kw for a split second, won't the wire still be counted as overloaded because there's a power draw (albeit from a battery) that is higher than the safe 1kw limit for the normal wire? Or is the battery's "special" status of neither counting towards a generator or a consumer the thing that makes this work?

I apologise if I keep on asking dumb questions, but I'm just trying to get a deeper understanding of electricity (amongst others), so I appreciate all your help.

[martosss]

16 minutes ago, Capsup said:

But why exactly is it that this setup would work? If at the same time there's a power draw of more than 1kw for a split second, won't the wire still be counted as overloaded because there's a power draw (albeit from a battery) that is higher than the safe 1kw limit for the normal wire? Or is the battery's "special" status of neither counting towards a generator or a consumer the thing that makes this work?

Overload is checked only on the base of consumers. If you have 2 circuits, each with 1kW consumers, each of them will draw MAX 1kW from the battery, so no overload there.

And yes, the battery has a special status - it's not counted as a consumer, so when you charge it, it doesn't overload the circuit even if you charge it with 4kW(a big transformer).

Likewise, you can charge a battery + supply 2kW consumers on a conductive wire without overload, since, again, only the consumers count, and they're 2kW.

Electricity in ONI certainly doesn't work like the real world, but it still has its rules.

On 7/13/2018 at 3:03 PM, martosss said:

Overloading - depends on 2 things:

1. Maximum safe Wattage - depends on the weakest wire that belongs to that network, regardless if it connects generators/consumers or not.
   • beware of loose normal wires, as they will decrease the Max safe wattage to their respective limit(e.g. 1kW instead of 2kW or 20kW)
2. Power consumed - how much power consumers are currently drawing from the network(regardless if it's from batteries or straight from generators).
   • You can see a list of consumers for each circuit through the PO

• If "2 > 1", that is, power consumed more than the maximum safe wattage, then the circuit is counted as overloaded and starts taking damage in random places.
• The batteries/consumers/generators distribution across the circuit does not matter.
• The number of active generators or connected batteries does not matter.
• Note PT* below - counted as consumer on the "high end" circuit with potential 5kW/sec Power usage!

Here is the part where I explain overloading. More precisely:

Quote

The number of active generators or connected batteries does not matter.

 

 

[Capsup]

15 minutes ago, martosss said:

Overload is checked only on the base of consumers. If you have 2 circuits, each with 1kW consumers, each of them will draw MAX 1kW from the battery, so no overload there.

And yes, the battery has a special status - it's not counted as a consumer, so when you charge it, it doesn't overload the circuit even if you charge it with 4kW(a big transformer).

Likewise, you can charge a battery + supply 2kW consumers on a conductive wire without overload, since, again, only the consumers count, and they're 2kW.

Electricity in ONI certainly doesn't work like the real world, but it still has its rules.

Here is the part where I explain overloading. More precisely:

 

 

So the point, actually, is that it wouldn't work no matter what. I can't have 2kw of consumers (that runs sporadically, maybe 25% of the time for a base load of 500w but a spike load of 2kw) on a 1kw wire with a battery that supplies the machines with up to 2kw intermittently, that is, for a split second where perhaps all the machines runs for 1 second at the same time, without overloading the wire?

What you're proposing allows me to fill up that battery / smart battery combo with just a normal 1kw wire between PT and battery, but I'd still need to seperate the consumer sides onto 2 seperate circuits with a maximum spike load of 1kw, right?

[martosss]

9 minutes ago, Capsup said:

I'd still need to seperate the consumer sides onto 2 seperate circuits with a maximum spike load of 1kw, right?

Yep, 2 circuits, 1kW each, in case you're worried that they will all draw power simultaneously. So you either connect them all to 1 circuit and prey they don't activate simultaneously(repairing any possible damage  if they do), or split them and use 2x2 batteries.

But once you have the smart battery packs, you can connect both of them to the same transformer, so it's basically 1 transformer powering everything. Or you can have more than 1 transformer, of course. You might also need batteries on the high side next to the transformer, though.

[Capsup]

4 minutes ago, martosss said:

Yep, 2 circuits, 1kW each, in case you're worried that they will all draw power simultaneously. So you either connect them all to 1 circuit and prey they don't activate simultaneously(repairing any possible damage  if they do), or split them and use 2x2 batteries.

Yep, that makes sense. Thanks for all your help and the sweet guide, I'll take it into consideration for my next base's design.

Have had this game for 50 days now and already up to 253 hours played since then, and still feel like a complete noob. Atleast previous experience have made it very easy for me to grasp automation, so I didn't have to jump that hurdle, but then there's all the other stuff!

[KittenIsAGeek]

5 hours ago, Capsup said:

@martosss is there a way to have more than 1kw consumers on the low-end of a small transformer that uses normal wires, and not have them overload the circuit when they all try to pull +1kw, but instead just have brownouts throughout the network? I seem to always end up with the transformer supplying more than 1kw and then getting overloads on the network.

I'm not quite sure I understand your question.  Are you saying that a small transformer will operate, say, 1200 watts of consumers without a battery?  

*EDIT: Nevermind, I didn't read far enough. This was all answered.