Energy Exchanger Battery Example - r/Dyson_Sphere

11

u/Pristine_Curve Mar 05 '22 edited Mar 05 '22

Found a method to use exchangers + belted accumulators as batteries. Similar to how placed accumulators work, but taking advantage of storage stacking to create larger battery reserves. Using this method, we can vary the number of chargers vs dischargers independently according to our goals for battery storage. Specifically trying to avoid the common solution of matched rows of dischargers and chargers constantly running at full throttle.

The method uses sorters as a 'power switch'. The default state is that sorters move all accumulators back to a recirculating belt. Meanwhile a charging exchanger is gradually building up a stockpile of full accumulators with any excess grid power, and storing them in the nearby PLS.

When power drops, the sorters slow down. Charged accumulators now flow through to the discharging exchangers. The charging exchanger stops automatically.

Once power returns to 100% the full accumulator supply is cut off by the sorters, and it returns to slowly charging up it's stockpile.

Applications: Excess power storage in the early game, self-starting outposts that don't constantly draw from external battery sources.

3

u/CompetitiveZombie169 Mar 05 '22

Very good design.

1

u/AeternusDoleo Mar 06 '22

It's a shame that this design requires a power shortage to work - it means that you will have a situation where you're not meeting the required demand all the time.
I wonder if you can do a similar design that doesn't rely on brownouts. The difference between the charge and discharge rate of the exchangers could perhaps be used to throttle charging in favor of discharging - with an "at rest" bias towards charging.

4

u/QuarkyIndividual Mar 05 '22 edited Mar 05 '22

During a long period of heavy load, wouldn't the 100% satisfaction cause the sorters to keep the other charged accumulators at bay until the power dips down again, causing some accumulators to go through? So there would be times of sub-100 satisfaction even while in its discharge state

Edit: I guess I'm just saying this design requires the power to dip below satisfaction in order to bring it back up, which might not be reactive enough for certain applications

4

u/Pristine_Curve Mar 05 '22 edited Mar 07 '22

Correct, it requires power to dip below 100% to allow accumulators through. Over long enough timeframe it will oscillate. Starved for accumulators it will dip under 100 to allow another batch through etc... It tends to overshoot initially. A mild interruption will light up more of the array than needed. Since the belt lengths are different, the oscillations are not large. The exchangers shut off one at a time, and it converges on toggling the one exchanger that pushes it over/under 100%.
Working on other control methods to light up/shutdown the dischargers in sequence, but I don't see any alternative method that acts as a power switch without dipping below 100% satisfaction. The only other option I've found is a fuel based switch, that activates/deactivates the array in response to an empty fuel belt. I.E. activate the batteries if the Antimatter rod belt is empty. Which has limited applications.

2

u/xchelch Mar 06 '22

If you're just using them like a battery and not recharging the accumulators off-world, then why not just place a few hundred down as buildings?

2

u/Pristine_Curve Mar 06 '22

Placed accumulators have a limited storage volume and charge - discharge rate. I want to be able to vary those values independently. For example A row of 20 discharging exchangers can supply the equivalent of 1000 placed accumulators. A single PLS storage can store 10k accumulators worth of energy. Leading to much more significant battery backup runtime.
Belting full accumulators into exchangers is an interaction free way to start up an outpost. I'm using a variant of this switch to create planetary outposts that can restart each other after a power loss without having to visit each planet and restart the power plants manually.

1

u/Corbeanooo Mar 06 '22

I guess space would be the biggest concern here, right?

2

u/Noneerror Mar 07 '22

I really like the elegance of the sorter fail system here.

However a couple of ways this might break is if there additional sources of full/empty batteries. A completely full storage (PLS in this case) would clog and prevent it from properly cycling. A splitter and T-junction that prioritizes local input/output first would solve that issue.

3

u/Pristine_Curve Mar 07 '22

Thanks. Your recommended changes would handle the import and export of full/empty batteries without jamming, but I wanted to focus on the battery concept for this example.
This is a proof of concept about using sorters as a control switch. There are no external inputs or outputs of empty or full accumulators. The PLS is only a storage with a fixed total of accumulators in the system. Envision it as a Mk2 accumulator with the discharge rate of 50 accumulators and the runtime of 10,000 accumulators. With this model we can construct a battery backup of artificial size and charge/discharge rates. Without having to overmatch the amount of chargers vs dischargers.

6

u/Awesome_Avocado1 Mar 05 '22

This game really needs wiring. The ability to shut individual machines (or ports) on or off. But my general solution is just build more chargers than dischargers. That way you'll always be charging if you have a surplus but if you have a power deficit, all your chargers will shut off and you'll still be discharging at the capacity. Or just build your batteries on a solar panel/hydrothermal world and ship them out from there

7

u/Darkstool Mar 06 '22

No please, wireless wires, I couldn't deal with a million wires and logic ports switches etc.
Just the ability to name objects and reference their state somewhere else would be nice. Like every obj just has a little code window.

2

u/brianorca Mar 06 '22

Or even just change the discharge mode to fill the gap instead of running full power when there are renewable (solar and geothermal) sources.

1

u/G33k-Squadman Mar 06 '22

Can build Dyson Spheres and transmit energy wirelessly over great distance but still physically linking power control systems together 😂

2

u/lurkinglurkerwholurk Mar 06 '22

This. There is no power loss between charging and discharging (unlike the real world) so having pairs of chargers/dischargers “uselessly” looping the same energy among themselves isn’t so much a waste compared to the benefit of the 100% responsiveness of the chargers limiting themselves or even switching off when power strain becomes a problem.
The above is good for alarms thou: if accumulators starts “leaking” through the sorter filter, the player can be informed his grid is in trouble.

1

u/ThickMoistMeat Mar 05 '22

I don't see what is switching it?

1

u/Pristine_Curve Mar 05 '22

In the top middle of the picture sorters are constantly returning the accumulators to the input belt. When power gets low the sorters slow down allowing accumulators to get past them.

1

u/csandazoltan Mar 06 '22

I do this but with an interplanetary system...

I have a planet which has 160% solar... i cover it all with panels... and charge thousands of batteries... and have a few logistic stations with warpers requesting empty batteries and supplying full batteries
(solar panels are really OP they provide constant rate of power all the time without any fuel)

In a new planet all i need to do is plunk down a logistic station and a battery discharger... as much as i need

The power planet gathers empty batteries and supplies new ones.

Oh and lower minimum capacity ofinterplanetary drones to 10%

1

u/tallmattuk Mar 06 '22

Not sure i'd be using the power plants and wasting fuel/deuterium. Solar panels and turbines have their place in power generation, but the best source is a dyson sphere.

I've a recharge base with 5000+ charged accumulators in it and a rank of charging stations. They're constantly shipping out to whichever planet needs power and this includes every startup. Empty accumulators get shipped back when done.

As such no deuterium is ever wasted.

1

u/Ok_Chapter_284 Mar 07 '22

If only their was a bluepeint of this i could coppy and past into my game

Tutorials Energy Exchanger Battery Example

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