About properties and values of wires and electrical machineries

[Ezer'Arch]

(/!\Warning/!\ This thread contains basics in electrical engineering. If you are scared of numbers and logic, RUN AWAY NOW!)

Working on my electrical networks made me raise some questions. Answers will be written on the Wiki:

1) Oxygen sealers:

Will they always demand the same amount of air points per second no matter the volume of the room to be sealed?

This means that if I build a very small room, I still have to provide 320 air points per second to make a sealer work.

2) Collectors and leaf blocks: according to my testings, each oxygen collector collects 1.5 air point per second from each leaf block within its range. Is it correct?

In fact, the leaf blocks do not yield anything, the collectors will just count how many leaf blocks are in the range and multiply the amount by 1.5 to generate an oxygen output.

Considering that oxygen sealers will demand the same amount of oxygen, if I build a very small base, I still need to build a big O2 farm with 214 leaf blocks or use more collectors to extract more O2 from a smaller amount of leaf blocks.

This is an example of old small base design I'm talking about (it will not work in the current versions):

3) Wirings: here is where the mayonnaise goes real.

The electric wires have resistance (ohms) and maximum current (amperes). Do both values really mean something or are they just decorative? How are they used in the system?

I don't mind if the values aren't realistic, just if they affect the way how machines work.

For example, in my base I installed 1 sealer, 2 oxygen compressors and 1 decompressor, 4kW each, all 120V. I want to know if the light wire can deliver it:

4 x 4 kW = 16kW = 16000W <-- the power my equipement demands

Now I need to convert watts to amperes by using Joule's law:

P / V = I, where:

P = power (W)
V= voltage (V)
I = current (A), therefore

16000W / 120V = 133.333 A <-- this is the current my

The light aluminium wire has 200kA and a resistance of 50ohm. 200kA > 133.333 A, therefore true.

But what if I want to do the other way around. I want to know how much electric power a light wire can transport (max. power) before installing the machinery?

Using 200kA and 120V with Joule's law, it gives me:

V x I = P:
120V x 200,000A = 24 000 000 W = 24MW

This means that I could connect 6,000 4kW-sealers and it's all okay...?

Or using 200kA and 50ohm with Joule's law for resistance :

R x I^2 = P, where:
R = resistane (ohms)
I and P are already known, therefore

50ohm x (200,000A)^2 = 2,000,000,000,000W = 2 Tera-watts, eh?

It seems these values written in the wires won't be of any help.

I made some testings to get the max. power of a light cable to confirm those values, I simply measured how many seconds are necessary to drain all energy from a battery at max capacity (joules/seconds = watts), I got very smaller values: 26kW and 217A.

Resistance seems not to affect anything. I transfered energy from a battery to another by wirings of different lengths, I expected more energy loss in the longer wires than in shorter ones. It's the same, no difference. Also, resistance should be ohms/meter, not just ohms.

For those who wants to watch me messing around: http://www.twitch.tv/ezerarch/b/505990037 (skip to 00:07:00)

 

[Douglas_Fresh]

Haha I like the disclaimer at the top. I've wondered this myself for quite some time. Though only on a rather basic scale, I am familiar as to the relation between voltage, amperage, and electrical resistance so I was a bit excited to see when those stats were identified on the different types of wires. I had never run into any issues caused by excessive resistance or anything though so I never figured out if it did in fact make any difference. I always like the scientific aspect of mods so I was a little bummed to see that it (as of right now) doesn't make a difference. Some other mods that have gold, copper, silver, etc. wires do take that into account though, do they not? Sure would be cool if Galacticraft plans to do the same.

 

[Dex Luther]

*snip*

Thanks for the information!

 

[Space Viking]

It's really great and convenient that you tested the technical aspects of the wires in GC since this verifies some features from Universal Electricity is no longer present in GC. In turn I'd just dust off an old modpack of mine for Minecraft 1.4.7 so that I could actually test an older versions of UE. The values for voltage and ohm actually played a role back then. Any amount of wiring (including unnecessary ones) would add up on network's resistance losses, as it was an intended feature. Only amperage appeared to be of no direct use, but it was planned for Electric Expansion to actually implement fuses for that.

Anyway, to the testing setup:

Each configuration consists of a battery box with a maximum charge of 4,99 MJ. By transferring electricity through a 25 blocks long cable to another empty battery box enabled me to document resistance losses by checking how much had been successfully transferred to the other battery box. The first battery box on the top is an exception using only a single copper wire. I've checked the three last configurations with a multimeter, which is a handy feature in Electric Expansion. Do note how the amperage scales accordingly to voltage.


Material resistance:

Superconductor: 0 Ohm
Silver: 19.99 MilliOhm
Copper: 50 MilliOhm
HV Wire: 100 MilliOhm


Testing results:

Single copper wire: 4.65 MJ

Copper: 87.04 KJ

Silver: 2.13 MJ

Superconductor: 4.99 MJ

Copper 360 Volts: 4:08 MJ

HV-wire 4.8 KiloVolts: 4.98 MJ

Copper 4.8 KiloVolts: 4.99 MJ


So yet again, power could be transferred with more efficiency by using wiring of higher quality material or by increasing the voltage. Increased voltage can however destroy your standard 120 volts hardware, so it required some electrical expertise to configure your wiring.

 

[Ezer'Arch]

Do note how the amperage scales accordingly to voltage.

That's because it follows the Ohm's law: I = V / R, where:
I = current intensity (ampere)
V = voltage (volt)
R = resistance (ohm)

... and you can get power (watts) with P = V x I . You increase the voltage (V) and decrease the current (Amps) to keep the same current to transport the same power (watts), thus getting thiner wires but with higher resistance (ohms).

Increased voltage can however destroy your standard 120 volts hardware, so it required some electrical expertise to configure your wiring.

A thing I'd like to avoid is over-complication, specially when Galacticraft can't give things right away in the UI or with a multimeter. This mod is about space, not engineering (BTW, Calclavia has been doing a great job with UE so I twitted him saying he was turning Minecraft into enginners' playground).

GC wires should have actual max amperes to limit the amount of machinery you can hook up, and if you want to refrain people from building very long cables, some ohms/m. An EE multimeter would be cool too. I don't know if the GC wires still can catch on fire when over-charged.

---

I made some more tests:

The heavy aluminium wire can transport 18kW at 147A. It has less capacity than the light wire. Why? :x

 

[Space Viking]

That's because it follows the Ohm's law: I = V / R, where:
I = current intensity (ampere)
V = voltage (volt)
R = resistance (ohm)

... and you can get power (watts) with P = V x I . You increase the voltage (V) and decrease the current (Amps) to keep the same current to transport the same power (watts), thus getting thiner wires but with higher resistance (ohms).

Well, I more of meant to say how it was in conjunction with the formula in the OP. Still, it's nice with a clarification since one of the things I wasn't sure of was if "I" stood for ampere (a typical amateur thing on my part).

Although, I am aware of voltage multiplied by current is how you calculate watts since it's something a standard multimeter isn't directly capable of by itself.

A thing I'd like to avoid is over-complication, specially when Galacticraft can't give things right away in the UI or with a multimeter. This mod is about space, not engineering.

No matter how much I loved the engineering part behind UE together with Electric Expansion, I must agree it is probably needlessly complex for standard GC. Electric Expansion is also dead anyway. Though the concept of incorrectly redirecting a HV line that causes the destruction of one's moonbase life-support would be hilarious in an awful way.

 

[TheUnkownPlayer]

Is this an suggestion? no -_- even the person who you thought wouldent make stupid mistakes just did..

 

[Douglas_Fresh]

Is this an suggestion? no -_- even the person who you thought wouldent make stupid mistakes just did..

Perhaps it's not a mistake, but rather an indirect suggestion to make the existing wire stats relevant. I may just be giving the benefit of the doubt, but then I will just make the suggestion myself.

Please make the wires with different ratings affect the performance of the circuit.

 

[Ezer'Arch]

Perhaps it's not a mistake, but rather an indirect suggestion to make the existing wire stats relevant.

That's my main point: the existing stats simply don't work or just don't apply. The light aluminium wire says "Max amperes: 200kA" but it barely can transport 0.217kA (or 217A) according to my tests. Something might have broken when Galacticraft became non-UE mod. I opened this topic in hopes that someone would clarify it or perhaps micdoodle8 could give these wires meaningful stats that can play a role in the game.

(Now I noticed I posted it in the Suggestions section, not in Support. It raised some ideas, though)

 

[radfast]

Hi Ezer'Arch.
I plan to take a detailed look at the wires stats and transfer properties, as part of a planned general overhaul of energy and wires for Galacticraft 1.7.2. None of this will be implemented in 1.6.4 now (unless to deal with game-breaking bugs).

I am a physicist so a reasonable simulation of electrical properties is certainly an important goal for me here.

But:
- good quality gameplay is the most important thing
- inter-mod compatibility is also important
- we don't want it to be intimidating for players who are not engineers to build functional setups in Galacticraft
- by the nature of the Minecraft game, players build star-shaped networks out of wire, not circuits as such, therefore measuring the "current" in the circuit is hard to make meaningful
- it is especially difficult for the game code to measure the "resistance" of wires, meaning the number of wire blocks traversed between two machines, if there are also other wire blocks with other paths in the same overall network
- implementation without producing server lag is extremely important if the mod is to be used on public multiplayer servers.

There is also the more general problem here that Galacticraft code is based originally on the UE approach which - to put it as politely as I can - is both clunky and slow.

For discussion, my preferred approach for Galacticraft 1.7.2 for the future is like this:

- it has to be based fundamentally on energy, not voltage/current/charge, for inter-mod compatibility: there are some mods (for example Thermal Expansion 3) which deal only in terms of energy

- each tick, for each network of wires, all the power generators / energy cells on the network have a certain amount of energy they can put into the network (usually corresponding to their internal energy buffer) - assuming a fixed voltage for everything on the network (see below) this energy also translates into a certain amount of Coulombs of charge in EE terms

- that energy is distributable to all energy acceptors on the network like this:
--- if there is enough energy to meet the needs of all energy acceptors on the network, then they all receive what they need (this will usually be the situation when all energy cells are full and all power consuming machines have full buffers)
--- if there is enough energy to meet the needs of all acceptors other than energy cells, then the machines receive what they need and the energy cells receive enough to keep them at least steady (this is a situation where energy cells are filling up - a filling energy cell can accept a huge amount of energy, but we don't want it to do that at the expense of nearby machines)
--- if there is not enough energy even to meet the needs of the machines, then each machine receives a reduced amount, being what it requires reduced by the same proportion for each

- the overall energy transferred per tick yields the power transferred by the network, which (assuming a fixed voltage) gives the "current" flowing in that network of wires (in EE terms you have to assume there is a bi-wired circuit connecting every machine in parallel, like a good set of Christmas Tree lights)

- the number of wires in the network, together with their electrical properties, gives the overall resistance of the network, and the "current" flowing through that resistance results in some power loss in the wires (in EE terms, magically here all the wire segments are in series, even though the machines are treated as being in parallel)

- different voltages correspond with different tiers of machinery, two or three tiers seems to be the sensible number chosen in most mods (Thermal Expansion 3 is different with generally four tiers of machinery, but everything on effectively the same fixed voltage, so for example all types of TE3 produce the same RF per tick)

- the voltage level can inform the "current" calculation mentioned above, but note in gameplay terms this will probably ONLY be relevant to the calculation of power loss, i.e. using a higher voltage will result in a lower current therefore less power loss (in EE terms, power loss = I^2 R)
--- in Galacticraft we probably do not want to implement something where lower tier generators cannot drive higher tier machines at all, as that just makes things harder for players with no real improvement in the gameplay experience. However, I'm open to ideas for nerfing situations where someone tries to power a higher tier machine with a single Basic Solar Generator. Maybe, a good implementation of the power loss for low-voltage high-current situations will already be enough of a nerf. (Idea: a higher tier has a "hidden" high built-in resistance which causes additional power loss / inefficient energy transfer if you try to feed it from a low voltage wire - kind of like input impedance in EE.)
--- equally, I am not a fan of situations where connecting a high voltage generator to a low voltage machine results in the machine actually exploding, as happened in Tekkit Classic 1.2.5 with IC2 and also Voltz 1.4.7 with Electric Expansion if you didn't have the correct transformer upgrade
--- given that Galacticraft is about the space age, I think the higher tier generators are smart enough to step down their output voltage if connected to a lower tier network and also all the lower tier machinery has built-in protections against blowing up (similar to how most consumer electrical devices in 2014 can accept 110V AC or 230V AC without any problems)
--- a network with mixed tiers of generators will automatically be operating on the lowest tier of output out of any of them - a "lowest common denominator" type of approach
--- a network with mixed tiers of machines accepting energy will operate more efficiently for the higher tier machines if the voltage is higher (meaning there will be less of the input impedance type of power loss), but it will make no difference to the lower tier machines - more precisely, once a machine's voltage tier requirement has been met, using an even higher tier voltage will make no incremental difference for that machine.

These voltage rules, I think are not too complicated, are enough to make the engineering types happy, and might actually enhance overall gameplay - so someone with a big setup will gain efficiency if they take care to make all the generators + wires high tier.

Implementing the above can be done, and it can be done efficiently for servers (in fact I have already done it privately on a 1.5.2 server). It builds on the approach taken in several of the best energy-handling mods, I would like to say it is choosing the best parts from each.

- Still to think about is the capabilities of wires other than their resistance, meaning should lower tiers of wires have a maximum power transfer? That starts to get very complicated. What should happen if the power is exceeded, should the wire melt (realistic) or should the energy transfer of the network simply be capped (this is the approach in GC 1.6.4 though there may be one or two bugs in the implementation as Ezer'Arch has noted). There was a nice idea in IC2 1.2.5 where you had low voltage wires for use with low voltage generators (for example solar panels), and high voltage wires for use with high voltage generators but those had greater power loss at low voltages. Electric Expansion 1.4.7 said in its documentation that it did something similar but it wasn't properly implemented: in almost all situations a player did best by using Silver Wire, and Superconductor Wire could magically do everything at the same time (high voltage, and zero power loss). I think adding any additional properties for wires to Galacticraft like this is probably too much. Likewise, I think that adding Transformers or transformer upgrades, as in those two mods, is too much - it would really need a new mod like Electric Expansion to be written.

Overall in gameplay terms I think power is important in Galacticraft and will become more important in the future - more machines are planned, and there will be more to do on space stations etc in gameplay terms, so if we can come up with something where players really need to make a nice array of solar panels to keep their space station fully operational, I think that will be good.

Open to discussion! Please also note all future direction of Galacticraft is up to micdoodle8, so some of my ideas mentioned here may not happen. And as you might know, micdoodle8 is planning a futuristic alternative to wires at the higher tiers, so all of this will need to interact smoothly with that.

 

[radfast]

(Please let's discuss sealers and oxygen collectors in a separate thread if you still feel that is an issue.)

 

[Ezer'Arch]

- we don't want it to be intimidating for players who are not engineers to build functional setups in Galacticraft

While I like all the ohm and joule stuff, I'm for keep things as simple as possible.

Since every machine in GC is 120V and energy resistivity is not taken in account when it comes to wire length (well, I couldn't tell it in my tests), I'd get rid of ohms and amperes or hide them if the player is playing only with GC. Joules and watts suffice. But if GC is being played with other mods, then those values can be kept and displayed to the player.

As to the energy storage module and its cap, since the oxygen storage module has a cap too and it is displayed in its GUI, it's interesting the energy storage module tell the player its cap, for consistency and clarity. The player can read the wiki (ours is unfinished), but de facto they won't. I prefer to have all essential information I need in-game.

Mekanism energy cubes have very large energy capacity and high output rates, you can power entire base with a few them and you won't get screwed. On the other hand, GC modules store very little energy (it's recurring topics asking to change it) and have a "hidden" cap. I once got screwed with my base because I thought it would help if I placed an extra energy module between the power plant and the base, like a buffer, I ended up shutting down my base because of the unbeknown cap. :3

You asked if I use the energy modules in parallel. It is.

http://imgur.com/a/s1SAY#22

But as you can see I had to install 48 100 modules to store energy enough to power up a 40kW Moon base for the nighttime.

 

[radfast]

I do like to see lux capacitors on a Moon base!

Point taken about the energy storage module, that's high on the list of TODOs. I'll talk to micdoodle8 about whether Galacticraft wants different voltage tiers, or not - it may be 1.7 will start without that and add it later. My view is it will be needed at some point for optimal compatibility with other mods which have voltage tiers or equivalents.

 

[SpwnX]

What about having an approach similar to IC²? Its network is simple, intuitive and efficient (performance-wise).
Exceeding voltages will damage the machine and cables (no explosion, just something that you need to repair in a second before you redo the wiring). Cables when melt it will drop as "melted X cable" where you can put it in a furnace to recover 2/3 of the material or so.
Add cable (and oxygen pipe) coloring orr something similar, to prevent those + crossections of cables which only causes problems on energy networks.

Also, considering RF and MJ are simpler than IC² (no voltage and other shenaningans), you may have no problems with them.


Sidenote:
My favorite thing on IC² power: Radioisotope Thermoelectric Generators (RTG), those generate "free" energy constantly, anywhere and it fits perfectly the space theme of GC, if you consider that the voyager 1 is powered by plutonium-238 fueled RTGs, for over 35 years.
One IC² RTG at full power can provide 12800 Watts (using 1 EU -> 40J conversion), enough to power 3 machines running constantly.

 

[radfast]

As revealed on micdoodle8's Twitter feed, the next version of Galacticraft will have a sci-fi power system, which will include colouring of the different power routes. But that will be an end-game system requiring resources from various of the Galacticraft dimensions. There will also still be the basic aluminium wires available, for early and mid-game power.

Galacticraft is designed to have wide compatibility with other mods power systems so that (depending on modpack) players can use IC2 or whichever other one they prefer - I like TE3 myself, because of the Tesseracts and liquid pyrotheum has such a nice look. Galacticraft also has its own power system in case someone is playing it standalone or without any other mod which offers power. Simple, intuitive and efficient is very desirable. We are still debating whether to include different behaviour for different voltages: power is not really at the heart of what Galacticraft is about, but on the other hand some players do enjoy the engineering aspects. I think we will probably end up with a two tier voltage system with 120V and 240V, offering efficiency benefits if the higher voltage is used, but no damage to low-voltage machines or cables if voltage is exceeded: Galacticraft equipment designers were smart enough to include fuses.

RTGs sound good, ideal for players building realistic setups in space. I don't think Galacticraft should offer its own version of those, though, that would just confuse people if the block already exists in IC2.

 

[SpwnX]

Those fuses have to be replaced once they are blown anyways... even if it is a cheap fuse, it still makes the player think "i'm doing something wrong".

 

[Space Viking]

I was actually once trying to design some graphics for the planned fuses intended by Electric Expansion's dev, but sadly it died even before I could display my work. They was color coded according to the mod's tier system and got visually based on blade fuses commonly seen in cars:

They was supposed to be installed into separate fuse boxes to protect entire arrays of machines from over-voltage. I also made some kind of switches I can't remember what for. It was probably a circuit breaker of some sort:

Anyhow, I do agree machines in GC shouldn't blow up due to invalid power setup. Let's indeed presume all equipment include fuses. Or some kind of advanced circuit breakers that automatically reset when power is at proper voltage.

I'd also like some RTGs in GC, but I'd also rather have it indirectly implemented. In my case it would be the Universal Electricity associated mod Atomic Science though, as I've never been into IC.

 

[Ezer'Arch]

They was supposed to be installed into separate fuse boxes to protect entire arrays of machines from over-voltage. I also made some kind of switches I can't remember what for. It was probably a circuit breaker of some sort:

Fuses? This is so early-20th century, from coal era. Shame on you!

Circuit breakers disable the electric flow when they detect current overload and the user or the breakers themselves can re-enable the flow when it's normal. GC machines could have internal circuit breakers and transformers, the machines would shut down if you provide wrong voltage or current higher than the max. amperes... but I don't want to over-complicate. Well, I would like to see how a multi-tier electrical system would work in GC.

BTW, great art there!

----

Mekanism has a Network Reader, you can right-click cables and pipes and it will give you the stats (voltage, power, milibuckets/tic, redstone sensitivity=on|off), and ComputerCraft has modules and bots you can program to follow the status of your machines etc.

It would be cool if GC had equipments to monitor the enviroment and installations so you don't need to check every machine or cable or make any guesses. Perhaps some kind of portalble reader or monitor: you'd right-click a cable to check if it's energized or not, its current (max Amperes vs. active Amperes), installed power (watts). You could also assign the machines you want to follow remotely.

Off-topic: following the same thought on readers for electric and air networks, we could have a portable sensor that checks with radio waves (make believe) if the room is air-tight or not and calculate the volume if so. Other thing I once suggested was a sensor integrated with the oxygen gears to check if you're in a air-less or breathable room.

 

[Space Viking]

Well, I would like to see how a multi-tier electrical system would work in GC.

Currently I think a dual tier system of 120V and 240V sounds simple but still interesting. While most basic machinery would operate at 120V, a high-powered device like an energy shield against radiation (useful for the inner Jovian system) would operate at 240V. Heavy-duty life-support systems (like keeping a Venusian base cooled) could also be operating at that voltage. These could potentially be compatible with 120V, but at a considerably reduced performance.

It would be cool if GC had equipments to monitor the enviroment and installations so you don't need to check every machine or cable or make any guesses. Perhaps some kind of portalble reader or monitor:

I was thinking of perhaps the energy storage module could on its own provide basic monitoring of the network. I made a GUI concept of that:

Aside from a typical gauge representing its current energy capacity, it also has one for input and output (I guess the displayed capacity would be based on the tier of cable connected to it). A status display could provide basic diagnostic and feedback, while more complex networks would require your suggested portable reader.

 

[radfast]

I like that GUI, a lot. The green bar on the right can represent what percentage of the module's maximum output is being drawn. The yellow bar on the left needs some thought - probably it can most usefully represent the same thing on the input, though I'm not sure that the unit should have a maximum input capacity. Intuitively it seems important the scale on the left bar is the same as the one on the right (so if the two bars are level, the battery neither charges nor discharges). I'll keep thinking on this one.

Great ideas, guys. I'll discuss all the ideas in this thread with micdoodle8 when he has time. I am sure we will implement some of this in Galacticraft 3, but please understand it will take many days or weeks to code it, and those plans may be interrupted by attention needed on other things.