We are limiting how we think about power transformers

[AverageHuman]

So conventional knowledge is that heavy watt wire goes in through the top and regular wire comes out the bottom. This allows you to not murder your decor by running heavy watt wire to every power consuming item. However, transformers also work the other way around. If you want to connect a power source to your central grid but don’t want to run heavy watt wire to it for whatever reason, you can have regular wire connected to your power source as the input and your heavy watt main grid as the output. 

[Nativel]

53 minutes ago, AverageHuman said:

However, transformers also work the other way around. If you want to connect a power source to your central grid but don’t want to run heavy watt wire to it for whatever reason, you can have regular wire connected to your power source as the input and your heavy watt main grid as the output. 

My dublicants says that AC after transformer became DC, with is simply not possible to transform back to AC via transformer I asked why - they say - because it doesn't have some kind of sinusoidal thing, and AC loose it when it's became DC, so it's just not possible that's it. And yes, transformers have diode bridge, not sure what do they mean, and diode it's a kind thing that let power flow only one way, and that's why you see those arrows on transformer they shows you the power way.

I asked them about, what if I have cable that is still AC because it's going from generator, and I'll connect wire to transformer and then I connect heavy watt wire, now they says -again no - we told you transformer have diode bridge, it's 4 diodes specifically connected and they not let power flow other direction even if it's AC, so it's only one way from heavvy to normal cable. We don't have other type of transformers.

 

[Mariilyn]

That's a nice idea, I haven't thought about doing that. XD I'm going to revamp my electrical grid now.

[_Q_]

2 hours ago, AverageHuman said:

So conventional knowledge is that heavy watt wire goes in through the top and regular wire comes out the bottom. This allows you to not murder your decor by running heavy watt wire to every power consuming item. However, transformers also work the other way around. If you want to connect a power source to your central grid but don’t want to run heavy watt wire to it for whatever reason, you can have regular wire connected to your power source as the input and your heavy watt main grid as the output. 

If you get the power flow fast enough it will fry the wire anyway, even without consumers in between.

[Zarquan]

This can save metal and avoid nasty decor in the power plants.

[bountygiver]

25 minutes ago, _Q_ said:

If you get the power flow fast enough it will fry the wire anyway, even without consumers in between.

but thanks to the new transformer update, if you don't have any other consumer in between, the transformer will limit the power consumption at 1 kW

 

for people who are confused on what can this accomplish, this essentially allow you to build additional power source (like solar) that is far away from your main power trunk without wiring the heavi watt all the way there, you can have a 2 kW solar grid and use conductive wire to bring all the power next to your trunk and use transformers to prevent conductive wires from overloading while still supporting the main trunk with your solar grid.

[_Q_]

7 minutes ago, bountygiver said:

but thanks to the new transformer update, if you don't have any other consumer in between, the transformer will limit the power consumption at 1 kW

 

for people who are confused on what can this accomplish, this essentially allow you to build additional power source (like solar) that is far away from your main power trunk without wiring the heavi watt all the way there, you can have a 2 kW solar grid and use conductive wire to bring all the power next to your trunk and use transformers to prevent conductive wires from overloading while still supporting the main trunk with your solar grid.

 

[martosss]

16 hours ago, _Q_ said:

videoooo

Funny, watching that video and the overloading moment... so the small power transformer is still broken, just like the big one. I left you a comment in youtube. Again, read my tutorial to understand why that overloading happens - batteries are a special case and they're the culprit that's breaking wires. However, if you use them with automation, you can do wonders.

Also, don't use Smart batteries to turn off a power transformer directly, as it deletes the 1kW charge that the power transformer holds. Instead use a Power shutoff that is on the "high side" of the power transformer, between it and the battery. That will let the charge be used and then the power transformer will stop working and producing heat.

Here's a link once more

19 hours ago, AverageHuman said:

So conventional knowledge is that heavy watt wire goes in through the top and regular wire comes out the bottom. This allows you to not murder your decor by running heavy watt wire to every power consuming item. However, transformers also work the other way around. If you want to connect a power source to your central grid but don’t want to run heavy watt wire to it for whatever reason, you can have regular wire connected to your power source as the input and your heavy watt main grid as the output. 

Yes, that will work, as long as the power source is less than 1kW. The more interesting question is whether you can supply consumers that are far away. And the surprising answer is yes, you can, even with a big power transformer and normal wires, if you use smart batteries together with power shutoffs. I've explained it pretty thoroughly in writing and pictures.

[BlueLance]

I thought that as long as their were no consumers on the grid you could just connect them using normal wires? Or have I missed something along the way

[Mariilyn]

It works even if the power source is over 1kW. The wire in Brothgar's video overloaded because it was directly connected to the main heavy watt wire grid from which a couple of other power transformers draw electricity ... 

21 hours ago, bountygiver said:

for people who are confused on what can this accomplish, this essentially allow you to build additional power source (like solar) that is far away from your main power trunk without wiring the heavi watt all the way there, you can have a 2 kW solar grid and use conductive wire to bring all the power next to your trunk and use transformers to prevent conductive wires from overloading while still supporting the main trunk with your solar grid.

Also if you have a couple of consumers on that 2 kW grid, they will get prioritized over the small transformer and the surplus energy will get sent to the main trunk. So if you have an hydrogen generator (+1200W with buff) with an electrolyser and 2 pumps (-600W) and a small transformer (-1000W) in the same network, the power transformer will draw only 600W of electricity (Sorry it this was obvious, that was not for me).

[trukogre]

On 7/31/2018 at 2:38 PM, _Q_ said:

 

The overload brothgar sees here is from connecting power transformers in a circle, which is not what anyone here in this thread is suggesting doing.  This video is thus basically irrelevant.

[lurkinglurker]

13 hours ago, BlueLance said:

I thought that as long as their were no consumers on the grid you could just connect them using normal wires? Or have I missed something along the way

The transformer itself is one hell of a consumer...

[martosss]

10 hours ago, Mariilyn said:

It works even if the power source is over 1kW. The wire in Brothgar's video overloaded because it was directly connected to the main heavy watt wire grid from which a couple of other power transformers draw electricity ...

If you're talking about the normal wire between the 2 small power transformers around 25 min in the video, you're wrong. It overloaded because the 2nd small power transformer (the receiver) was supplying the battery. When batteries are being charged, the small transformer acts just as the big one - draws up to 5kW of power. Brothgar showed this in the video, but he didn't know why the power transformer is drawing so much power. It's because the smart battery next to the metal refinery was being charged. The moral of the story - if you're charging batteries down the road, don't keep normal wires on your high side, because there the transformer is counted as 5kW consumer and he'll fry your curly wires.

10 hours ago, Mariilyn said:

Also if you have a couple of consumers on that 2 kW grid, they will get prioritized over the small transformer and the surplus energy will get sent to the main trunk. So if you have an hydrogen generator (+1200W with buff) with an electrolyser and 2 pumps (-600W) and a small transformer (-1000W) in the same network, the power transformer will draw only 600W of electricity (Sorry it this was obvious, that was not for me).

You're partially right. You're missing the part about batteries and that makes a lot of difference. If there is a battery on the high side that has enough charge(in Brothgar's case those were the 40kJ batteries in the middle) and a battery on the low side that needs charging(e.g. the smart battery next to the metal refinery on the right), that power transformer in between will provide 5kW of energy for the battery and will be counted as a 5kW consumer on the high side. That will definitely fry your wires.

Another funny example - consider 5 transformers charging 5 batteries on different networks. If all transformers work simultaneously, they'll draw 5*5kW from the heavi watt circuit and overload it even without any consumers on the low end(just batteries). I gave this as an example of overloading network - batteries on the high side, batteries on the low side, 5 transformers in between, no consumers => heavi watt wires on the high side overload, because transformers are counted as 5kW consumers each, but normal wires on the low end don't overload, because that circuit doesn't have consumers - batteries don't count!

[Mariilyn]

 

14 hours ago, martosss said:

If there is a battery on the high side that has enough charge(in Brothgar's case those were the 40kJ batteries in the middle) and a battery on the low side that needs charging(e.g. the smart battery next to the metal refinery on the right), that power transformer in between will provide 5kW of energy for the battery and will be counted as a 5kW consumer on the high side. That will definitely fry your wires.

I didn't saw the overload happening at 25 min yesterday. But that's interesting because in my case I have smart batteries on both sides of the small transformers... and I didn't saw it go over 1,6 kW consumer on the high side. I joined a screenshot for reference. Is there something I missed ? I tried all game speeds too.

[martosss]

33 minutes ago, Mariilyn said:

 

I didn't saw the overload happening at 25 min yesterday. But that's interesting because in my case I have smart batteries on both sides of the small transformers... and I didn't saw it go over 1,6 kW consumer on the high side. I joined a screenshot for reference. Is there something I missed ? I tried all game speeds too.

Put more batteries on the high side.... I think you have only 1 battery per transformer and that might get drained too fast.

Here's an artificial example that I posted in another thread as well - batteries and power transformers only ! Heavi watt overloads, normal wires don't overload   I tried capturing the overload message, so you can see where it happens.

Also note the heavi watt status - 30kW usage - 6 power transformers x5kW. I'm not exactly sure how the new power transformer works, since I don't have it in this version, but looking at Brothgar's video, it should be the same concept - batteries are being charged fast and cause overloading.

 

[Mariilyn]

20 minutes ago, martosss said:

Here's an artificial example that I posted in another thread as well - batteries and power transformers only !

Hah but this is in CU, so it is obsolete. In EU, power transformers have been changed. The new small transformer transfer 1 kW per second and the old one now transfer 4 kW per second. So if you replace the power transformers in this example with the new small ones, and run it in EU, the heavi-watt status should be 6 kW usage.

In my game I could only reproduce the overload thing when adding another small transformer to feed electricity into the conductive wire SPOM grid. The uppermost conductive wire and the heavi conductive wire were also + 5 kW usage.

 

 

 

[The Flying Fox]

17 hours ago, martosss said:

If you're talking about the normal wire between the 2 small power transformers around 25 min in the video, you're wrong. It overloaded because the 2nd small power transformer (the receiver) was supplying the battery. When batteries are being charged, the small transformer acts just as the big one - draws up to 5kW of power. Brothgar showed this in the video, but he didn't know why the power transformer is drawing so much power. It's because the smart battery next to the metal refinery was being charged. The moral of the story - if you're charging batteries down the road, don't keep normal wires on your high side, because there the transformer is counted as 5kW consumer and he'll fry your curly wires.

Hate to say it, but you're wrong.  The point of changing the transformers in EU was to fix their odd behavior.  I tested them in the beta of EU and just retested them now. The transformers no longer appear to function per-tick but, instead, by second.  So, they operate exactly what they say 'on-the-tin'.

 

 

The larger transformer provides 4KJ/s and the smaller transformer 1KJ/s.  Even tested with a pulsing power shutoff switch set to only close for 1 second out of several.  Every time it closed, the battery would only charge either 1000 or 4000 joules depending on the transformer used.  I also tried combining 2 small transformers and got an expected battery charging of 2000 joules for the 1 second the battery could charge.  They indeed work how you'd expect them now by what their text says.

 

So yes, the OP is indeed right, you can use the small transformer as a 'step-up' transformer, connecting small wire from a generator/smart battery to the high-side, and heavy-watt wire to the low side without fear of overloading the small wire since it can't pull more then 1KJ/s through it.  I've already basically did the same thing in my base.  (Just with my existing switched battery network.)  Two small transformers hooked in parallel also won't overload conductive small wire either.  So, you can hook up steam turbines and petro gens like this without issue.  This will mean creating power generator rooms with little decor debuff easier to create.

[martosss]

10 hours ago, The Flying Fox said:

Hate to say it, but you're wrong.  The point of changing the transformers in EU was to fix their odd behavior.  I tested them in the beta of EU and just retested them now. The transformers no longer appear to function per-tick but, instead, by second.  So, they operate exactly what they say 'on-the-tin'.

The larger transformer provides 4KJ/s and the smaller transformer 1KJ/s.  Even tested with a pulsing power shutoff switch set to only close for 1 second out of several.  Every time it closed, the battery would only charge either 1000 or 4000 joules depending on the transformer used.  I also tried combining 2 small transformers and got an expected battery charging of 2000 joules for the 1 second the battery could charge.  They indeed work how you'd expect them now by what their text says.

So yes, the OP is indeed right, you can use the small transformer as a 'step-up' transformer, connecting small wire from a generator/smart battery to the high-side, and heavy-watt wire to the low side without fear of overloading the small wire since it can't pull more then 1KJ/s through it.  I've already basically did the same thing in my base.  (Just with my existing switched battery network.)  Two small transformers hooked in parallel also won't overload conductive small wire either.  So, you can hook up steam turbines and petro gens like this without issue.  This will mean creating power generator rooms with little decor debuff easier to create.

Ah, thank you! I was indeed partially wrong. OK, since I didn't have the small transformers I couldn't really test them, that's why I could only imagine what the reason for the overload is. Now I updated a little, so here are results that I managed to get:

• Big PT has "normally" 4kW power.
• Small PT is "normally" 1kW.

However, they are still glitchy! I will report this, but as Brothgar showed in his video, there are cases where the small PT will revert to the 5kW case and overload. Most notably, the (PT+PT+PT+PT)=>PT...=>...consumers/batteries: the PT-PT interaction is broken -  several "generator" PTs connected to the same "consumer" PT will happily provide a combined power of much, much more than 1kW/4kW, actually, 5 times more(so it's still per tick?).

Here's the simplest setup that fails - several PTs providing power to the same PT.

As you can see, the big PT draws 20kW! What a beast!

In picture 2 we see 2 problems:

1. the small PT should provide a max 1kW, instead, it provides 5kw!
2. the big PT should draw a max of 4kW, instead it draws 5kW(actually up to 20, as shown in picture 1)

• Note that here there are 4+3=7kW possible transfer, but the small PT is using only 5, so, as you can see, it is capped.

Note in @Brothgar's case, he had several PTs on the left/top providing power to the main power bank in the middle and then a small PT was drawing from the Power bank and supplying the remote small PT through normal wires. In his case all the PTs that fill the power bank on the left/top were providing a combined power of 5kW to the small PT on the right.

So, @The Flying Fox, I was indeed wrong. I believe now we straightened things out? Brothgar unintentionally found another bug and we unraveled the mystery around the new PTs.

So, I am happy to say, the PT behaves in "a bit more" predictable way. However 3 important points I'd like to leave as a conclusion:

1. PT-PT interaction is still broken.
2. As Brothgar showed, making a big power bank with several PTs will still fail you because of (1)
3. As I explain in the electricity tutorial, using a "smart battery pack" between consumers and a big power transformer will still give you 4kW of power without overloading normal wires, in spite of (1).

 

[The Flying Fox]

13 hours ago, martosss said:

Ah, thank you! I was indeed partially wrong. OK, since I didn't have the small transformers I couldn't really test them, that's why I could only imagine what the reason for the overload is. Now I updated a little, so here are results that I managed to get:

• Big PT has "normally" 4kW power.
• Small PT is "normally" 1kW.

However, they are still glitchy! I will report this, but as Brothgar showed in his video, there are cases where the small PT will revert to the 5kW case and overload. Most notably, the (PT+PT+PT+PT)=>PT...=>...consumers/batteries: the PT-PT interaction is broken -  several "generator" PTs connected to the same "consumer" PT will happily provide a combined power of much, much more than 1kW/4kW, actually, 5 times more(so it's still per tick?).

....

You're definitely right.  Transformer to Transformer is definitely still buggy and the back transformer is certainly appears to be operating on per-tick, as opposed to per-second.

 

The small transformer definitely can go up to 5KJ/s -if- the transformers in front of it can provide it under their normal levels. (1KJ/s and 4KJ/s respectively.  The large transformer can also definitely go up to 20KJ/s if the front transforms can provide it in their normal non-bugged mode.  In this case, the back large transformer would start at 20KJ/s and then quickly drop to the output of the front transformers. (5KJ/s in this case)  If I added another large transformer in the front, then it would drop down to 9KJ/s from 20KJ/s.  Good find!

 

So, until they fix it:  Generator -> small wire -> small transformer -> heavy watt wire trunk -> local transformer can still cause an over-load on the heavy-watt wire if even 2 larger local transformers are trying to grab power at the same time. (Not uncommon) I'd suppose the bug could be minimized somewhat by having batteries on the small wire between generator and small transformer with no batteries on the heavy watt wire.  That way any local circuit transformer would be quickly limited by the output by the generator transformers.

[martosss]

4 hours ago, The Flying Fox said:

So, until they fix it:  Generator -> small wire -> small transformer -> heavy watt wire trunk -> local transformer can still cause an over-load on the heavy-watt wire if even 2 larger local transformers are trying to grab power at the same time. (Not uncommon) I'd suppose the bug could be minimized somewhat by having batteries on the small wire between generator and small transformer with no batteries on the heavy watt wire.  That way any local circuit transformer would be quickly limited by the output by the generator transformers.

I'm not sure that will work. In fact that might be a bad strategy. I think in case of multiple power transformers you shouldn't have any batteries there.

• Having batteries on the small wire will allow the small transformer at the generator side to draw 4kW from those batteries.
• If you don't have batteries on the small wire, the small transformer will be limited to the generator's output, so it will supply 600/1200 instead of 4kW(or 20 in case of big!).

At any place where you have "Battery => transformer A => transformer B => Consumers" , transformer A gives B up to 5x more power, because it can freely draw power from the batteries. So if you move the battery in the middle it's a better solution.

Having "generators => transformer C => Battery => Transformer D => consumers"  would cause C to usually charge batteries and supply at most as much as the generators are producing. That is in general less than 4kW. However, if there are many C transformers and many generators, they may add up and cause overload. Then, when there is demand from the Consumers, the Transformer D will draw from the transformer first and it will be limited by the output capacity of the generators. So the limit will be most definitely not 4kW, but something like 1-1.5kW - what generators are producing and not the glitchy 4-20kW.

For me the best solution is to totally hide consumers behind batteries and use transformers only on one side - in front of generators. That means effectively substituting the 2nd power transformer with smart batteries. That means the setup that I recommend is

(A) generators + batteries, all on heavy wires => (B) big daddy transformer(4kW!) => (C) small wires running all around the place =>(D) smart battery pack(smart battery + normal battery + logic to switch them) =>(E) consumers on a normal/conductive wire with 1/2kW circuits(depending on wire).

That allows you to have:

• many (A+B) in different places
• many (D+E) in many places, possibly distant.
• normal wires at C(in-between B and D, which are possibly very distant)
• normal / conductive wires on E(depending on consumers type and size: >1kW consumers require conductive wires ONLY at E and not between B and D)
• D is not counted as consumer in the C circuit, so no overload on C
• E is using max 1kW from D, so no overload on D either
• B is providing its normal power limit(1 or 4kW), so no overload on A

I just found out how to zoom out really far away, so here are some screenshots of a normal-wire-base:

• White normal wire is C - main backbone that goes around the whole base. You can see how long it is and imagine how much metal + decor I've saved from that.

• Here is the right part, here we have a set of D+E: Hydrogen + coal generators and several batteries behind a big daddy power transformer

• Here is the bottom left part - again D+E - more hydrogen generators and batteries behind a big power transformer(I even have a power switch that shuts off the network in order to stay self-powered when there isn't enough power).

There is an example of an A+B in case of aquatuner. Here i have 2 aquatuners, each connected with a smart battery + normal battery + 4 power switches + logic to the normal wires. The normal wires(the ones with the many bridges) are part of the main backbone, but they only supply the batteries, so no overloads!

• Here is a close-up + logic layout of a smart battery pack(D), which stands between the white circuit(C) and the yellow consumer circuit(E). You can see the Power switches. Currently the smart battery supplies consumers on the yellow circuit, while the white circuit is charging the normal battery. When the smart battery is drained, all Power switches are toggled and roles reverse - smart battery charges from white, normal battery supplies yellow.

• Here is another, probably bad example. of a circuit D+E. The idea is that this is very far away from any generators - it is in the top middle of my base, whereas generators are bottom left and bottom right. And this circuit has a whooping 3.7kW on normal wires! I should probably split those in 2-3 parts. However, it usually does not overload, because there are 6-7 mechanized airlocks and atmo suit docks, which are inactive most of the time, as well as sweepers/loaders. You can see the current power draw - only 360W.

• Here is an example of a new circuit(E) connected to a concise smart battery pack(D) on a height 4 corridor and having width 4. This is one of the most concise setups that I've come up with. You can also see the main backbone - it has only 500W of consumers that I didn't split into any circuit. Other than that there are 6 batteries(and 6 more that are hidden) that each supply a small circuit(E) like the above example.

• And finally, two examples of how to control generators - 2 smart batteries that form a "virtual 40kW battery". They act as a big 40kW battery in the sense that they first both charge, then they stop the generators until one battery is discharged and the other battery is at 40%, after which they start charging again. That allows me to hook up more normal batteries on the high end and still charge them fully, instead of only to 50%. Additionally, when the batteries are with "full" status I'm rerouting Hydrogen to the cooling chamber on the left or to a plastic drecko farm, so that pipes are not congested.

Also, on the right picture you can see that I added a power switch that will cut access to the outer circuits while the core circuits are charging. That ensures the electrolyzers always stay powered.

So there you have it

• easy expansion of generators - just add generator(E) + Power transformer(D)
• easy expansion of consumers - just add smart battery pack(B) + consumers(A)
• easy expansion of backbone - normal wires are basically free and cause minimal stress! You can substitute those for conductive wires in visible areas where stress might be an issue.

[trukogre]

"

• easy expansion of backbone - normal wires are basically free and cause minimal stress! You can substitute those for conductive wires in visible areas where stress might be an issue."

So we're back where we were a year ago, where you could use a normal wire backbone to transfer unlimited current, except now you have to add in an extra layer of transformers between the generators and the backbone...hilarious.

I'd say it's pretty clearly an exploit now, just like it was then, as I don't think Klei intended this behavior. On the other hand, the decor penalties for heaviwire seem kinda bizarrely high to me, so it's one of the exploits I tend towards seeing as benign, if not straight up beneficial.

[The Flying Fox]

1 hour ago, martosss said:

I'm not sure that will work. In fact that might be a bad strategy. I think in case of multiple power transformers you shouldn't have any batteries there.

• Having batteries on the small wire will allow the small transformer at the generator side to draw 4kW from those batteries.
• If you don't have batteries on the small wire, the small transformer will be limited to the generator's output, so it will supply 600/1200 instead of 4kW(or 20 in case of big!).

At any place where you have "Battery => transformer A => transformer B => Consumers" , transformer A gives B up to 5x more power, because it can freely draw power from the batteries. So if you move the battery in the middle it's a better solution.

Having "generators => transformer C => Battery => Transformer D => consumers"  would cause C to usually charge batteries and supply at most as much as the generators are producing. That is in general less than 4kW. However, if there are many C transformers and many generators, they may add up and cause overload. Then, when there is demand from the Consumers, the Transformer D will draw from the transformer first and it will be limited by the output capacity of the generators. So the limit will be most definitely not 4kW, but something like 1-1.5kW - what generators are producing and not the glitchy 4-20kW.

....

Perhaps it wasn't made clear enough in my previous post, but the bugged state of the transformers appears to only be happening to secondary transformers along the chain.  Not the front/primary transformers which is evident in this set of pictures.

 

 

The two circuits I show with these small transformers clearly show that they're working as intended and only pulling 1KJ/s through them.  One has just a battery, the other a steam turbine.  If those transformers were bugged, they'd clearly be pulling 5KJ/s like you said, but they don't.  Only the secondary small transformer shows the bug and, as you can see, it's only pulling 3KJ/s.. because the 3 front small transformers can only supply it 1KJ/s each.  If the front transformers were in a bugged state, then that secondary transformer would be pulling 5KJ/s instead, but it's not.

 

It seems clearly intended now that the transformers are only suppose to supply what they actually say.they can.  Batteries trying to charge on one end or the other no longer matter.  Small transformers are suppose to do 1KJ/s and the large ones are suppose to do 4KJ/s no matter what.  It just appears that transformers considered "B" or lower in the power network hierarchy are functioning the old way, per-tick as opposed to per-second.

 

So, indeed:

Generator ->Battery ->Transformer A -> etc.  Is fine with small wire as long as you use small transformers.  Small wire won't overload that way because transformer A doesn't bug out and won't supply more then it's actually rated for. (From what I can see)  It's only transformer B,C,D, etc, that seem to bug out.

[martosss]

8 hours ago, trukogre said:

"

• easy expansion of backbone - normal wires are basically free and cause minimal stress! You can substitute those for conductive wires in visible areas where stress might be an issue."

So we're back where we were a year ago, where you could use a normal wire backbone to transfer unlimited current, except now you have to add in an extra layer of transformers between the generators and the backbone...hilarious.

I'd say it's pretty clearly an exploit now, just like it was then, as I don't think Klei intended this behavior. On the other hand, the decor penalties for heaviwire seem kinda bizarrely high to me, so it's one of the exploits I tend towards seeing as benign, if not straight up beneficial.

Actually you don't need to have transformers, you can also do it without them. However, the transformers do help in the sense that they speed up battery charging. Transformers basically provide a way to store a lot of power on the high end and transfer it FAST to the lower end circuit. This is especially true for the big transformer with its 4kW capabilities.

8 hours ago, The Flying Fox said:

If those transformers were bugged, they'd clearly be pulling 5KJ/s like you said, but they don't.

Again, I'll label the right Power transformers A B C(the generator side) and the left one D(the consumer). Now notice that because you have battery => ABC => D, D can draw 3kW power - the sum of the maximum power of each of the small transformers A+B+C.

Now consider my 2nd suggestion, putting the batteries between ABC and D, so that you have ABC => Battery => D. Then it is very likely that ABC will provide less than 3kW, since they don't have 1kW generators on the high side, they usually have less. That was my point - the battery allows ABC to supply their max capacity. Even if that max capacity is capped at 1kW, it's still 1kW! If you had a battery => big power transformer F next to ABC things would get ugly even without ABC, as F will provide 4kW and instantly cause the bug.

However, If you have generators => no batteries here => F=> battery => D => consumers, then F will be limited by the generators, which are usually <4kW. That was my whole point - the batteries allow the ABCF transformers to use their max capacity and increase the chances of a bug occurring.

As you can see in your case, the big IS occurring for D, since it's drawing 3kW.

Here's how you can fix that !

Reposition batteries so they're ABC => battery bank + a smart battery S => transformer D => consumers

Now the lazy ugly solution - use S to disable ABC when the power bank is full. That way D will usually draw power only from the power bank, drawing only 1kW !!! So D won't overdraw in this case.

Of course, to make this efficient you'll need 2 smart batteries + some power switches like I show in my examples. More precisely, this one:

If you have those 2 smart batteries "S" be part of the big power bank between ABC and D, S will stop ABC when it's fully charged(40kJ) and allow D to draw ONLY 1kW for a long time. If you had only 1 smart battery instead of S, you would charge all batteries to only 20kJ(since they charge with the same speed), which is an effective 50% capacity waste if you're using normal 40kJ batteries.

Also, notice I'm not switching off the power transformer using logic - I'm switching off ONLY generators. This is because generators are perfect - they don't lose generating power/resources. However, the power transformer loses its charge when switched off with automation! Now that the Big daddy Power transformer has 4kW charge, switching it off using automation is a terrible idea, since you "delete" those 4kJ of energy!

8 hours ago, The Flying Fox said:

So, indeed:

Generator ->Battery ->Transformer A -> etc.  Is fine with small wire as long as you use small transformers.  Small wire won't overload that way because transformer A doesn't bug out and won't supply more then it's actually rated for. (From what I can see)  It's only transformer B,C,D, etc, that seem to bug out.

One more time, how is it fine if you still have a buggy transformer on the lower side(3kW usage in your pictures)? You have to remove it, right? Well, not quite. If you move those batteries in front you might be able to use this setup.

In fact, I can think of a way to completely solve the issue by using 2 power banks that switch when full:

ABC => power bank S1 and S2, each connected ONLY to one side at a time(left OR right) => transformer D.

That means you'll split your circuit in 2 parts, ABC => S1 and S2 => D ... or when S2 is empty, you switch them using logic + power shutoffs and you get ABC => S2 and S1 => D. That way D will only ever see batteries on the high side and will draw only 1kW while ABC are charging the other batteries!

I am basically using that setup, but I don't have the D power transformer at all (since it's redundant) - I'm just using batteries.

[lukin4u]

figured out a work around the 5K transformer overdraw problem with the use of a switching battery pack... power from the grid comes into the bottom and then gets stored in the middle read for redistribution via the top:

top: for use in base

middle: storage as many batteries as u want

bottom: max 2 smart batteries (i think) otherwise they draw too much current from grid into this first section and fry even the conductive wire, automated NOT gate at the top isolates bottom layer from middle while its charging from the grid then disconnects to shift it up to middle

 

[crypticorb]

If I'm understanding the original point correctly, you can have a power source from some remote location on a 2kW conductive wire, and using the input side of the transformer, connect it into a larger backbone of heavi-watt wires?

One setup I would find this incredibly useful for is a steam turbine. I need to keep it thermally insulated, which is difficult as heavi-watt wires cannot be routed through walls without the wall plate, which conducts freely. Running heavi-watt wire from the remote volcano back to my main power grid is also resource intensive.

If I could run conductive wires throughout the steam turbine and door pumps, and conductive wire all the way back to base, that would be FAR preferable, as it would use a fraction of the metal, and be easy to route wires through the turbine enclosure.

Would this work with the 2kW power source? I glanced over the replies, and there's a ton of debate that I frankly don't have hours to read.