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Configurable transformer/voltage limiter


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I came across a situation in which I wished there were an electric equivalent of a liquid/gas valve. My suggestion is to either:

A) add a "slider" configuration option to the Transformer's menu, forcing the Transformer to ONLY consume AND provide power from 0W up to it's maximum of 1000W,

or B) add a new "Diode" item to the Power build menu, which performs a similar function.

As an example use case, the situation I came across was that I had two 2kW circuits available, and wanted to use them to power three 1.2kW Aquatuners. Originally, I hooked up one Aquatuner and one Transformer to each circuit. Then I merged the outputs of the Transformers into one circuit for the third Aquatuner. However, as far as I can tell, there's no user-controllable way to ensure that power is drawn equally from each Transformer. In fact, what I observed is that one Transformer provided its full 1kW, while the second Transformer provided the remaining 200W. This of course caused one of the two original 2kW circuits to overload. Ideally I'd like to configure each Transformer to provide a maximum of 600-800W, ensuring that the source circuits can't be overloaded.

Obviously, the current solution to this would be to re-wire the entire thing using Heavi-Watt Wire. But for the sake of contributing more flexibility and elegance to systems design in the gameplay, I feel like this suggestion would be a worthy addition.

Cheers,

 

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41 minutes ago, Roachy1 said:

Obviously, the current solution to this would be to re-wire the entire thing using Heavi-Watt Wire. But for the sake of contributing more flexibility and elegance to systems design in the gameplay, I feel like this suggestion would be a worthy addition.

I thought the obvious solution would be to add a third transformer really. Or use switch mode batteries.

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This kind of circuitry is somewhat over my head, but if I'm reading it right it does something along the lines of outputting from only one battery at a time, thereby limiting the draw/output wattage. Kind of precious to call that an obvious solution. But thanks for the input.

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2 hours ago, Roachy1 said:

Then I merged the outputs of the Transformers into one circuit for the third Aquatuner.

In this case, you'd want two transformers for each 2 kW circuit powering your aquatuners.

Something much easier to put in the game (and arguably would follow the pattern set by the "conductive" wires / heavy-wires) would be a 2 kW "conductive" transformer, for use with those 2 kW wires. It could be built out of refined metal too.

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6 hours ago, Roachy1 said:

This kind of circuitry is somewhat over my head, but if I'm reading it right it does something along the lines of outputting from only one battery at a time, thereby limiting the draw/output wattage. Kind of precious to call that an obvious solution. But thanks for the input.

I apologize for being a bit brief.

Here's the complete circuit you need. There's two 2KW lines coming in from the left and three 2KW lines coming out to the right.

What happens here is that the switched mode battery is fed from either line alternately so that each battery is charged in turn by one or the other main circuit. And then the load only sees either one of the charged battery and never either of the main circuits. Anyway, this will solve the problem.

image.thumb.png.fa2c0005207ddaf107c0e26ea021f211.png

image.thumb.png.61f5bfa1833e08be3188065d23e142a1.png

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So that IS very clever and works for this scenario. Though, I don't understand the function of a few of your logic gates. The below appears to do the job.

oni_battery_switcher_logic.png.99fb7ef2f9cfeb422df06588e2041644.png

Also, in my test, I had to run each input line through its own transformer before going into the battery switcher. Otherwise any consumers on the input lines would drain the batteries faster than they could recharge.

oni_battery_switcher_circuit.thumb.png.b771ace4046a853fd62cfe3f06576cde.png

At any rate, despite there being an existing elegant solution to my example case, I do still think the flexibility of a variable throughput transformer would be useful and wouldn't necessarily detract from the fun of innovative solutions. It would cover many more cases than this one, allowing for much more precise circuit tuning.

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You will probably notice if you run at normal speed that the aquatuner connected to the switched mode battery drops out shortly at each phase change. That's because the NOT gate in the game has a slight but annoyingly also variable delay built in whereas the synced AND-XOR gate is a perfect NOT gate meaning that they change phase perfectly timed with each other.

The other part of the circuit is an edge detector based perfect clock generator followed by an XOR gate T-latch. In the perfect clock generator the delay in the NOT gate is used in the edge detector to detect even the shortest pulses.

The idea is to make the circuit completely stable no matter what game speed you run at because otherwise that can cause havoc.

And it may also be the reason you need the extra isolation transformers. In my test I didn't need them. The slight delay of the NOT gate will cause the batteries to lose a little charge at every phase change which mine doesn't.

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I see. I did use your design first and the batteries were still draining too fast, so I still think the other two Aquatuners were causing that drain before I added the transformers. After fixing that, even with the simplified but imperfect design the batteries still charge faster than they drain so any inefficiencies seem negligible. On the flip side, any amount of time the battery circuits are both open due to the imperfection seems so short that it would be statistically impossible for it to cause circuit damage. And this has been my observation as well.

After adding the Transformers, I did notice that actually, the consumers of the pipe network were not consuming the cooled liquids fast enough to run the switched Aquatuner constantly. But even when I ensured the switched Aquatuner was running constantly (by dumping the liquids out of a vent), the batteries still consistently kept charge. So I guess my use case just has enough flexibility to not require the perfect timing. It's all very interesting and good knowledge though. Thanks for explaining.

It all just kind of goes to show however, that getting these things just right relies on working around engine quirks and race conditions. Myself, I have an appreciation for the investigation this requires. But I'd still appreciate seeing a few small quality of life additions (such as my OP suggestion) for us filthy casuals who can't or won't delve so deep that they can prove coding flaws in a NOT logic gate. The game already distances itself from a large audience due to the sheer mechanical and analytical nature of the gameplay. I'd hate to see it step even further towards the ledge of "enthusiast-only catering" if it can be avoided with a slight shift in mindset.

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Actually, the NOT gate is supposed to have a minute delay. If it was in perfect sync we could not make latches and flip-flop circuits :D It's just in some cases it's not optimal. For your specific use case it might not matter but if you have large circuits coupled together with switched mode batteries you do not want to leave anything to chance.

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