Have the transformers been changed again?

[Xadhoom]

The small transformer used to be able to only transfer 1kW of energy so it was perfectly fine to add 2 such for a conductive wire and not having to worry much about wire breakage, only the small charge in the transformer itself could cause problems but it was managable.

 

recently, i built a system where i was using a small transformer to charge batteries from a conductive wire and it started breaking. it was odd, so looking at the wire i saw this:

the small transformer is drawing a whopping 5kW! 

have i missed any patch notes saying it's supposed to have changed?

[tzionut]

I think that is the total possible output off all your power source (the Primar coil of your transformer)...

[Xadhoom]

nope, this is the other side of the transformer:

the battery i have there also charges ludicrously fast which makes me certain its not false to make the assumption it really is able to transform 5kW of power.

[tzionut]

I usual don't play whit transformers... the power transformed to heat is the reason...but if i have time i will test at home... first i need to finish my last version of regolith magmaficator

[AndreyKl]

9 minutes ago, tzionut said:

I usual don't play whit transformers... the power transformed to heat is the reason...but if i have time i will test at home... first i need to finish my last version of regolith magmaficator

You can always set a smart battery after transformer and set it to turn transformer off around ~2% of battery charge. I use such scheme and my transformers are always empty (or look empty) with no noticeable downsides except for construction cost and used space.

[Mariilyn]

It's a bug that happens, I think, when the small transformer draw power from another power transformer.

 

[tzionut]

Quote

You can always set a smart battery after transformer and set it to turn transformer off around ~2% of battery charge. I use such scheme and my transformers are always empty (or look empty) with no noticeable downsides except for construction cost and used space.

Instead of this i eliminate the transformer and after the generator i put direct a smart battery that turn on and off the generator...So first battery command my main power generator, the second the auxiliary, and if i want i can add the third one and type of fuel for the emergency power generation.

[Kazumiya]

57 minutes ago, tzionut said:

I usual don't play whit transformers... the power transformed to heat is the reason...but if i have time i will test at home... first i need to finish my last version of regolith magmaficator

The heat is not that big... Only one wheezwort is enough to keep it ok.

[Xadhoom]

42 minutes ago, Mariilyn said:

It's a bug that happens, I think, when the small transformer draw power from another power transformer.

 

yeah, that's what i concluded as well after some testing.

i simply made the main transformer turn on/off with a smart battery and it seems mostly solved. but i guess i could still occasionally have some wire breakage.

[SamLogan]

2 hours ago, Xadhoom said:

The small transformer used to be able to only transfer 1kW of energy

It's not a bug, in fact you don't understand how work the Power Transformer :

It's 1kW but occuring 5 times / seconde so 5kW transfer.

That's why the old Power Transformer get buff, to sustain the mega base which use a 20kW (4kW x 5) network.

You should read this :

Quote

PT can hold 1kW charge, but can discharge 4-5 "ticks" per second.(should be 1kJ, as W=J/s, but I'll just use W everywhere for simplicity)

 

[AndreyKl]

1 hour ago, tzionut said:

Instead of this i eliminate the transformer and after the generator i put direct a smart battery that turn on and off the generator...So first battery command my main power generator, the second the auxiliary, and if i want i can add the third one and type of fuel for the emergency power generation.

There are quite a bit of equipment that doesn't require power all the time, like grills, sweepers, pharma chambers, suit docking stations, doors, e t c. It is unsafe to keep those on single line, yet takes too much space and resources to provide power for each. As result earlier or later setups like single generator powering 6 separate 2KW networks become preferable (especially after you get the 'tune up', it is cheaper to tune up single generator and make sure it has enough consumers to work 24/7, with non-tuned up backup generator compensating for some 'peaks').

[Xadhoom]

39 minutes ago, SamLogan said:

It's not a bug, in fact you don't understand how work the Power Transformer :

It's 1kW but occuring 5 times / seconde so 5kW transfer.

That's why the old Power Transformer get buff, to sustain the mega base which use a 20kW (4kW x 5) network.

You should read this :

 

that is dated info, i believe the smal transformer was introduced after July, and they also changed how much power a transformer can put trough.

I'm well aware how the transformers work, and a small transformer should only be able to have a throughput of 1 kW, a regular transformer has 4 kW throughput.

this is normal for a small transformer:

here you can see it draws 1 kW of power, this is normal. what i showed in first post is a bug.

3 hours ago, Xadhoom said:

it should NOT be able to draw 5 kW of power.

[Chipplyman]

As I understand it, the 5 ticks per second answer is correct. But it only matters when you have a battery on both sides of the transformer. Batteries provide and receive charge using maximum power every tick. Normal consumers account for their power consumption per second. 

[Xadhoom]

23 minutes ago, Chipplyman said:

As I understand it, the 5 ticks per second answer is correct. But it only matters when you have a battery on both sides of the transformer. Batteries provide and receive charge using maximum power every tick. Normal consumers account for their power consumption per second. 

i don't recall what upgrade they introduced the small transformer, but in that upgrade they also changed how the transformers worked.

a regular transformer can now power 1 kW+ equipment without a need for battery, before that upgrade it could not, you had to use a battery as a 1 kW+ load without battery would just fizzle.

[Chipplyman]

49 minutes ago, Xadhoom said:

they also changed how the transformers worked.

a regular transformer can now power 1 kW+ equipment without a need for battery

They split the transformer into a small version that kept the 1kW capacity and got new art, and a large version that got 4kW capacity and kept the old art. They shuffled the tech tree a bit. I don't believe power generation/storage/consumption logic was changed significantly, at least not wrt batteries quick charging other batteries across either type of transformer. 

[psusi]

As it has always been, you can't limit the power to 2 kw by transformer; you simply must not put more than 2kw load on the wire.  It can transfer more power, especially when charging a battery, but battery charging does not count towards overload.

[Xadhoom]

45 minutes ago, psusi said:

As it has always been, you can't limit the power to 2 kw by transformer; you simply must not put more than 2kw load on the wire.  It can transfer more power, especially when charging a battery, but battery charging does not count towards overload.

A small transformer working as intended, can never continuously transform more then 1kW of power. it still holds a charge of 1 kJ making it possible to have short burst exceeding 1 kW. so usually a regular wire would not break from using a small transformer, but its possible because of that charge in the transformer itself. a regular transformer can continuously transform 4kW of power, it holds a 4 kJ charge making it possible for it to have short burst exceeding 4kW.

The bug occurs when a transformer is connected to the output of another transformer, all of the sudden a small transformer can output 5 kW and a regular 20 kW. if you place a smart battery in between them and turn of the first transformer, then 2nd will work in its regular 1 kW or 4 kW power throughput, but only as long as the first transformer is off, once its turned on the 2nd will once again transform as 5x its normal amount.

 

if you can transform over a power line without any charge on the line, its also perfectly safe.

example:

 

this system should never overload the conductive wire, regardless of how much load i put on the lower system as the 2 small transformers should never put out more then 1 kW of power each. the smart battery turns on/off the upper transformers, on the Screenshot the transformers are all activated. 

as you can see, the load on the conductive wire is 2 kW, however its weird, while it seem the reported power can fluctuate, it won't break the wire.