Solar power

[Sneaky Balue22]

I think there should be an option to find solar panels in the game. So far the only power in the game comes from the generator. But with new updates, gas runs out in the gas stations.
Finding solar panels and installing them should be part of the electrical trait.

[Dingo]

Agree - making fuel finite is cool, but needs to be some kind of late game ability to overcome this.

Building a steam engine
solar panels
power banks

[Brother Frederick]

Game's in 93... Power banks...

[stevasaur]

I think a crude wind turbine or waterwheel is much more likely than solar panels. Especially since the same basic code/models could be used for non-electricity-generating windmills/waterwheels.

[Dingo]

โพสต์ดั้งเดิมโดย Varagyr Frederick:

Game's in 93... Power banks...

Power banks did exist back in 93' my friend - just not as common as they are today.

[Brother Frederick]

โพสต์ดั้งเดิมโดย Dingo:

โพสต์ดั้งเดิมโดย Varagyr Frederick:

Game's in 93... Power banks...

Power banks did exist back in 93' my friend - just not as common as they are today.

No, it's a new technology. Go read about it.

"The first portable power bank was created in 2001 by a Chinese company called Pisen. The original design was two AA batteries pieced together by a circuit! It made its public debut at the Las Vegas International Consumer Electronics Show"

Sources also say that modern power bank was created in 2010 by Technocel after working on this technology from 2001-2009.

And that is mostly thanks to cellphone tech progress - smartphones.

[Dingo]

โพสต์ดั้งเดิมโดย Varagyr Frederick:

โพสต์ดั้งเดิมโดย Dingo:

Power banks did exist back in 93' my friend - just not as common as they are today.

"The first portable power bank was created in 2001 by a Chinese company called Pisen. The original design was two AA batteries pieced together by a circuit! It made its public debut at the Las Vegas International Consumer Electronics Show"

Sources also say that modern power bank was created in 2010 by Technocel after working on this technology from 2001-2009.

Power bank for charging phone - you dont use those in households - I think you are misunderstanding my meaning - deep cycle power system have been around for a VERY LONG TIME.
Look at boats, motor-homes and off grid living - same goes for the solar power of the time, it wasnt as good as today (would not really function in cloudy weather and not as effective).

the way your talking is like batteries didnt exist until 2000, but you can chain car batteries and again deep cycle batteries.

and before you get on the solar panel builds:
1883 – Charles Fritts builds the first solar cell (1% efficiency)
1888 – Aleksandr Stoletov develops a solar cell using the outer photoelectric effect
1954 – Bell Labs produces the first practical silicon solar cell (6% efficiency)
1955 – Western Electric creates a commercial solar cell (2% efficiency)
1958 – Vanguard I is launched as the first solar-powered satellite
1967 – Soyuz I is launched as the first solar-powered manned spacecraft
1973 – Skylab is launched by NASA as the first solar-powered space station
1978 – Solar-powered calculators enter the market
1982 – Arco Solar builds the world’s first 1MW solar park

[Brother Frederick]

โพสต์ดั้งเดิมโดย Dingo:

Power bank for charging phone - you dont use those in households - I think you are misunderstanding my meaning - deep cycle power system have been around for a VERY LONG TIME.
Look at boats, motor-homes and off grid living - same goes for the solar power of the time, it wasnt as good as today (would not really function in cloudy weather and not as effective).

the way your talking is like batteries didnt exist until 2000, but you can chain car batteries and again deep cycle batteries.

So you talk about batteries or to be more speciffic and how I call it - accumulator...
That's little different than what is called "power bank".
Sure, those were used surely during Warld War II (u-boots) and I think even during The Great War also.

Problem with those is still voltage and storage that's why cars and other mechanical devices have something called alternator which recharges them whenever engine is running otherwise they would die pretty fast.

I haven't heard about those type of storage units being capable of producing voltage to support normal - 220V - devices. Maybe they could but I haven't plugged regular light bulb into a car battery to see it for myself - theoretically but my bet is that that battery would die pretty fast hence there are special 12v bulbs and whatnot designed for being connected to accumulators. (side note - LED weren't in the state we have now, in the 90s)

Maybe there were some to withstand a load created by regular equipment but they must have sucked because whenever power was needed to flow without long interrupts they used good, old gasoline-powered generators. (like hospitals for instance, hell, they still use that)

โพสต์ดั้งเดิมโดย Dingo:

and before you get on the solar panel builds:
1883 – Charles Fritts builds the first solar cell (1% efficiency)
1888 – Aleksandr Stoletov develops a solar cell using the outer photoelectric effect
1954 – Bell Labs produces the first practical silicon solar cell (6% efficiency)
1955 – Western Electric creates a commercial solar cell (2% efficiency)
1958 – Vanguard I is launched as the first solar-powered satellite
1967 – Soyuz I is launched as the first solar-powered manned spacecraft
1973 – Skylab is launched by NASA as the first solar-powered space station
1978 – Solar-powered calculators enter the market
1982 – Arco Solar builds the world’s first 1MW solar park

Problem with solar panels is not about when they were created but rather when and by whom they were used in the 90s.
They were a novelty back in the 90's and nothing compared to what we have now.
Technology for common use was expensive, not really that efficient, very liable and beyond reach of average Joe.

This doesn't mean I'm against them ingame because hving an alternative to gas is always good to have.

[Dingo]

โพสต์ดั้งเดิมโดย Varagyr Frederick:

I haven't heard about those type of storage units being capable of producing voltage to support normal - 220V - devices. Maybe they could but I haven't plugged regular light bulb into a car battery to see it for myself - theoretically but my bet is that that battery would die pretty fast hence there are special 12v bulbs and whatnot designed for being connected to accumulators. (side note - LED weren't in the state we have now, in the 90s)

When you connect them in parallel the current flowing through the circuit increases with the number of batteries in the circuit - ie stronger/more powerful batteries.

To gwet them to work with AC (household devices) you use a inverter (I still have one from the 90's and it works great)

โพสต์ดั้งเดิมโดย Varagyr Frederick:

They were a novelty back in the 90's and nothing compared to what we have now.
Technology for common use was expensive, not really that efficient, very liable and beyond reach of average Joe.

Your'e right you would not be finding them on most buildings, it was (at least where I live) more of a rural thing - farms and houses that would/could suffer long term blakcouts should something go wrong, would have solar panels on a roof that would charge up a power bank.
As such they would typically have enough power to run the house for a couple of days (depending on power storage) and would have a generator backup just in case.
Also keep in mind most people hae these so they can 'go on like nothing happened' but being the end of the world, you arent going to be running everything you used to. just need power for a freezer, tv and radio (maybe a light or two) - nothing compared to a old household of the 90's

[Brother Frederick]

โพสต์ดั้งเดิมโดย Dingo:

When you connect them in parallel the current flowing through the circuit increases with the number of batteries in the circuit - ie stronger/more powerful batteries.

To gwet them to work with AC (household devices) you use a inverter (I still have one from the 90's and it works great)

Paralles increases capacity if im not mistaken, for voltage it's serial connection (or however it's called in english) though it's been 20 years since last time I learned about electric stuff in school...

But you would still need converter/inverter - as you said - to use that and I don't think that someone who isn't an electrician will have such thing. Father had something like that but he was in fact electician.

โพสต์ดั้งเดิมโดย Dingo:

Your'e right you would not be finding them on most buildings, it was (at least where I live) more of a rural thing - farms and houses that would/could suffer long term blakcouts should something go wrong, would have solar panels on a roof that would charge up a power bank.
As such they would typically have enough power to run the house for a couple of days (depending on power storage) and would have a generator backup just in case.
Also keep in mind most people hae these so they can 'go on like nothing happened' but being the end of the world, you arent going to be running everything you used to. just need power for a freezer, tv and radio (maybe a light or two) - nothing compared to a old household of the 90's

Not really.
Rural areas even now rely mostly on regular fuel generator - be it gasoline or petrol. It's cheaper, easier to maintain, more reliable, can be sheltered from weather and isn't dependant from weather doesn't require any converters nor power storage.

And no. Power storage when it comes to solar in 90's was friggin awful, paps wanted those on our house but it was only as a support power source and not as a stand alone, cut off main power line kind of deal.

You could support maybe a fridge but those weren't economy A+++ class and would quickly run the energy storage dry...

Anyway...
My bet would be that SPs would be not in rural are but rather in some rich districts.

Main problem that I see with panels is that you won't or shouldn't be able to repair it once it's damaged and that it would/should require - by game's standards - at least 7 electronics to install.

[Shadowcub]

โพสต์ดั้งเดิมโดย Dingo:

Problem with solar panels is not about when they were created but rather when and by whom they were used in the 90s.
They were a novelty back in the 90's and nothing compared to what we have now.
Technology for common use was expensive, not really that efficient, very liable and beyond reach of average Joe.

I was looking for a solar panel mod recently and this is the very reason I ultimately decided against it. Though they were available in the 90s, in that they existed, almost no one had them. They were insanely expensive and the ones available for homeowners were so inefficient and high maintenance that it wasn't worth the cost. I don't remember seeing one until I was in high school in the early 2000s. And though I grew up in the northeast of the US and they became quite popular over the last decade, I live in TX now and they're still pretty rare here. I highly doubt there would enough in Kentucky in the 90s to justify adding them to the base game.

Wind or even hydro, however, would be more fitting for the setting and provide an alternative to the generators. Though wind would probably be easier to implement, since there is already a kind of wind system in the game.

[b3nt0]

So in 93, solar panels were just not relevant, wind turbines are very complicated to put together correct. Also rechargeable batteries were not really available, so you would be having to use car batteries for storage. This has a few issues like over charging and so forth.

Most of the stoves are gas powered, around that time were gas powered and lightning it was electric, with a lot of electric stoves, however the mechanic of the stove seems like a oven is the only thing that works and not the actual stove top meaning the gas was shut off way before you start your game.
So if you had a wind system you would need to invert that 12v to 110v to get it to work.

The generators in project zomboid are gas powered, theses actually do exist and come in 110v. This makes it very easy to install and connect to your home grid. You would just grab a cord from the generator and pull out your electric fuse box and hook it up.

Hydro power would be a nightmare to build by your self as you would need to dam part of a running stream.

However for both wind/hydro power, you would probably get a few car parts and would be half way there.

The final nail on the coffin this type of stuff it build-able , but at the time would require a ton of materials to put together. Imagine breaking open 100's of calculators for the solar cells on top. Than connecting all of this in series to produce 12v, hooking up a car battery to it. Than getting an inverter to push the 12v to 110v.

IMO you would probably need 7 electronics + engi profession + mechanic.
Or various skill books on the subject, probably 12.

There is one other thing about this that would make it really difficult at the time. Usually you need to climb the roof to install this kind of stuff facing the correct angle of the sun for maximum sun light, as far as I know ladders are not a thing in project zomboid. Solar cells are super fragile in a way so if a zombie walked on it, its over. There is also the issue you would need to keep the panels clean specially if it was a super makeshift panel.

I think the same reason why you can't build your own mechanical batteries in game for retraining electricity while the generator is not running. Like a water pump and a water box with a turbine to generate power on demand, creating a gravity battery. This type of stuff is great for lights but not great for fridges , stoves , a/c.

Unrelated :
Funny enough you could break up a CRT television for the inverter, at the same time you could use the CRT components to also weld metal as the the way the CRT's worked was high charged electricity beam against a glass screen. If you had rubber gloves and rubber shoes, you could technically spot weld 2 metals together with the crt components. However this could be how you died too.

IMO they also need to add substations into the game, just make it super secure lots of doors but in theory you would want to repair that substation for power.
Additionally for more immersion allow the player to repair fallen down electric wire in the highway. Most likely that would be the reason why the power would go out in the first place, I don't see an actual reason why they would shut off the power to a county.
However once substations around the area, would be infested with zombies / burned down, due to maybe a hord ran over 9000v and start frying till it burned the substation to the ground.