Electric Chargers (Update v.0.10.35)

[GrumpyOldMan]

What could be an actual use case for these?

From testing so far a single one allows for a charge transfer rate of ~0.0014 charge/s on an empty (0 charge) small battery...

The input side doesn't matter, a turbine powered large generator producing 15k or a simple medium battery make no difference, the electric charger only allows a transfer of a fixed value depending on charge.

The transfer rate also decreases, the more filled the charging battery gets,
With the small battery at 0 the charge rate is 0.0014/s.
At 0.3 the charge rate already drops to 0.001/s...

In case of the small battery this will take more than ~30 minutes to charge a single small battery from 0 charge.

Do any devs have an example how these chargers should be utilised?

As of now a single electric charger can't keep a small battery topped up powering a single spotlight, no matter what's powering the input side.

Seems to be better to keep batteries charged using threshold gates and relays instead.

Any thoughts?

[Beginner]

Hrm... I have a different result. I can have all the monitors, instrument panels, lights and even a heater be always at 1 charge using just one charger. Very useful feature. Especially for EVs. For example, now my monitors will not die after 0.5 on a half way to Arctic. And also, which is more important - my heater will work at full in that Arctic even if there is only 0.1 charge left on batteries. Before that I had to use separate circuits with aux batteries. Now I can manage it in the way I want without any tricks with relays.

Did a test for you - here how much charger is able to power at constant 1: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2197933184
Maybe even more.

To be honest, after looking at this I think that many components have a very low power consumption. A small battery can lasts for a half an hour even with both radios be in transmitting mode (if I'm not mistaken in calcs).

Another usage is protection from power surge on starting medium and large engines under the load. Same issue was with powering multiple motors, control surfaces and robotic components from one circuit iirc. I'm sure community will find many usage for this component.

As for the rate for batteries then I can't say that 30-60 mins is slow even for a game. It takes much more when we charge our car batteries IRL (6-8 hours for a flat battery from my experience) :D And anyway, luckily in the game we can easily increase the rate by just adding more chargers in parallel.

[GrumpyOldMan]

Uh, wait what?
You put it behind the battery in front of consumers?

That's not a charger but a diode then.
I also noticed it somehow has its own internal capacity if you cut it off from power sources.

That name is really confusing then since it doesn't act as a charger but more like a diode with internal capacity.

Odd.

Edit:
So a good setup would be:
Generator->Main Battery Bank->"Charger"->buffer battery->"Charger"->consumer

Interesting, this way you could add relays and keep batteries filled up depending on priority, with heaters/doors draining last etc.
If a single charger can't keep up it's also possible to stack them in parallel.

[Ra-Ra-Rasputin]

Well, in the news update they do mention it functions like a step-up charger or a diode.

While my knowledge of electronics is admittedly limited, so far i'm seeing it function as expected.

[GrumpyOldMan]

Curious if bigger versions will make it into the game with higher throughput.
For now they're only good for dials/instruments and other low consumption devices, doubt they'll transfer enough for a single velocity pivot.

Definitely a step in the right direction though.

[Ra-Ra-Rasputin]

Yeah, i want a proper hybrid drive and a capacitor and diode setup is absolute necessity for that. Having to run the generator on parity to always keep the battery at 100% is not exactly an efficient system, because in the game charge is the same as voltage output

[m61a1]

It operates as a diode.I wouldn't really call it a charger.

[RadialVolcano27]

My tanks on the islands started to run out of battery after a long time of use and keeping reverse pump on etc. I made a small device to charge the battery's on the fuel tanks.

It has two small batteries and the charger, connected to an electric connector. It works as a charger in my eyes.

Also, can someone tell me what a diode is?

[xaero]

My Phone chargers faster.... so it is pretty much useless... dont have 6-12 hours to waste for it to charge something

[xaero]

Originally posted by RADIVOL27:

My tanks on the islands started to run out of battery after a long time of use and keeping reverse pump on etc. I made a small device to charge the battery's on the fuel tanks.

It has two small batteries and the charger, connected to an electric connector. It works as a charger in my eyes.

Also, can someone tell me what a diode is?

Well you can just find info in the net ^^

A diode is a semiconductor device that essentially acts as a one-way switch for current. It allows current to flow easily in one direction, but severely restricts current from flowing in the opposite direction.

And this is how it works in game

[RadialVolcano27]

Originally posted by xaero:

Originally posted by RADIVOL27:

My tanks on the islands started to run out of battery after a long time of use and keeping reverse pump on etc. I made a small device to charge the battery's on the fuel tanks.

It has two small batteries and the charger, connected to an electric connector. It works as a charger in my eyes.

Also, can someone tell me what a diode is?

Well you can just find info in the net ^^

A diode is a semiconductor device that essentially acts as a one-way switch for current. It allows current to flow easily in one direction, but severely restricts current from flowing in the opposite direction.

And this is how it works in game

Thanks

[Beginner]

Originally posted by xaero:

My Phone chargers faster.... so it is pretty much useless... dont have 6-12 hours to waste for it to charge something

Your phone have that big battery too?

[GrumpyOldMan]

Originally posted by Beginner:

Your phone have that big battery too?

At least a phone charger puts out sufficient amps to get the phone charged in an adequate time.

The in game "charger" has a fixed transfer rate depending on charge level, which is impractical for anything other than keeping low power consumption consumers powered.
For power transfer between batteries the transfer rate is too low, even when stacking 5+ chargers.

As mentioned before, charging a small battery (if you assume a rather low capacity of 120Ah for a battery this size) it'll still take more than 30 minutes, or a full in game day at default setting to charge it. It might be even longer than that since its charge rate significantly slows down the more charged a battery is, maybe to imitate real life charging of a battery, but ludicrously exaggerated, for whatever reason.

For keeping batteries filled up I'd just not bother with a charger and go the old relay+generator route.

[Ra-Ra-Rasputin]

The problem with very high capacity batteries in reality is that they're really awful in taking in charge, even if they have a significant output. The reason phone batteries can charge fast is twofold: They really don't hold all that much charge in mAh terms, and instead of just being "one battery" it's usually dozens of cells that are connected to an electronically connected output to make them function as if one battery.

It's also why electric cars don't usually have 1, 2, 10 or 50 batteries, but hundreds.

I still would really want a very high output capacitor and diode gubbin so i can finally make hybrid vehicles that don't have awful power curves because i've only got 80% power output at 80% battery charge.

[Beginner]

Originally posted by GrumpyOldMan:

The in game "charger" has a fixed transfer rate depending on charge level, which is impractical for anything other than keeping low power consumption consumers powered.
For power transfer between batteries the transfer rate is too low, even when stacking 5+ chargers.

I don't see a problem here. It's a sandbox game where every component should have own limit and if you need more then you just add more of them. The charger component have as small size as possible for exact that reason - to let players use more of them if needed. That should cost them size, mass and money if they play career. All components should balanced that way. This is why we see multiple engines or multiple propellers used on the vehicles.

Originally posted by GrumpyOldMan:

As mentioned before, charging a small battery (if you assume a rather low capacity of 120Ah for a battery this size) it'll still take more than 30 minutes, or a full in game day at default setting to charge it. It might be even longer than that since its charge rate significantly slows down the more charged a battery is, maybe to imitate real life charging of a battery, but ludicrously exaggerated, for whatever reason.

I don't think matching it to the day length is a good idea. Going that way the fuel consumption and electricity generation/consumption should be tied to the day length setting too.

For example, in v1.0 there will be 60-120 mins for day length - does it mean we should rebalance any components because of that? Although, if it will be 120 mins then these 30 mins will match 6 hours of charging the 120Ah battery...

Like I said, you can easily turn these 30 mins to 15 mins or to just 5 mins by simply adding 2 or 6 chargers in parallel. This is a good balance for players when they have to chose between size, mass, cost and power.

I don't mind balancing the rate of the charger. We can double it but for now I simply don't see a reason for that. It powers so many components at 1 charge with ease.

Originally posted by Ra-Ra-Rasputin:

I still would really want a very high output capacitor and diode gubbin so i can finally make hybrid vehicles that don't have awful power curves because i've only got 80% power output at 80% battery charge.

Like a bigger version of that component? What vehicles types you mean? DE boats and trains?

I've tested with my EV van that use small motors. With 4 medium batteries I was able to run at 1 charge till about 20% of charge left. 12 chargers were used which was still more compact design than using additional circuits, batteries and relays.

[GrumpyOldMan]

Originally posted by Beginner:

This is why we see multiple engines or multiple propellers used on the vehicles.

Most likely due to lack of alternatives I guess.
I'd rather have 1-2 engines of appropriate size, than having to stack 6 large diesel engines because there's nothing above the large diesel and turbines might not make sense in specific cases.

That's not the purpose of this topic though, I'm sure more size variants of the charger will be welcome, especially when they transfer fast enough to keep electric motors at full charge, as long as enough input is supplied in front of the charger, which is currently not possible, unless you stack a lot of them.

Originally posted by Beginner:

I don't think matching it to the day length is a good idea.

I never suggested or mentioned that.
You came up with a real life comparison first:

Originally posted by Beginner:

As for the rate for batteries then I can't say that 30-60 mins is slow even for a game. It takes much more when we charge our car batteries IRL (6-8 hours for a flat battery from my experience)

When charging a small battery from 0 charge it takes way too long to reach a full charge, no matter how you look at it.
If you want to supply a small camera and don't get that white noise artifacting that happens below 80% charge, you need to either set up multiple battery banks and switch between them, or stack at least 2xchargers to keep a !single! small camera running.

Originally posted by Beginner:

Like I said, you can easily turn these 30 mins to 15 mins or to just 5 mins by simply adding 2 or 6 chargers in parallel. This is a good balance for players when they have to chose between size, mass, cost and power.

Why not make this an option for the select tool?
Add a slider to limit the max. transfer rate, would add much more to the game, especially when adding bigger versions, so you can choose between 1x2x1 (1x-2x rate), 2x3x2(5x-10x rate), 3x5x3(25x-50x rate) and 5x5x3(75x-150x rate) charger variants. I'm sure this will be most welcome.

Originally posted by Beginner:

I've tested with my EV van that use small motors. With 4 medium batteries I was able to run at 1 charge till about 20% of charge left. 12 chargers were used which was still more compact design than using additional circuits, batteries and relays.

Please do upload this vehicle, since I'm struggling on a 3000mass truck using 30 chargers, 6 medium batteries and 1 small motor.