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Would you expose the Fuell Cell's "fill amount"


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Fuel cells self-activate when the battery level drops below 95%.

For many applications, my fuel cells are the supplier of last resort. A threshold of 10% would automagically do what I want, if only I could set it.

Would you please consider to expose this to the player? Maybe instead of the on/off switch if you're concerned about UI clutter.

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  • 1 year later...

What I'd rather see with fuel cells is the ability to dedicate a small Lf/O tank to fuel cell operation -- so if I burn my tanks dry with (say) a Kerbin return insertion burn, I don't have to get home on just the installed batteries (with no more way to recharge them, if I've installed fuel cells instead of solar panels).  Flow priority won't do this; no matter how low the priority, a running engine will still suck down all the fuel.  Careful setup of crossfeed enable/disable might do the job, but it'd be easier to just have a dedicated tank.  An FL-T100 or toroidal would be plenty for a longish mission, generally, if I could be sure the maneuver engines wouldn't suck down the fuel.

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59 minutes ago, Zeiss Ikon said:

What I'd rather see with fuel cells is the ability to dedicate a small Lf/O tank to fuel cell operation -- so if I burn my tanks dry with (say) a Kerbin return insertion burn, I don't have to get home on just the installed batteries (with no more way to recharge them, if I've installed fuel cells instead of solar panels).  Flow priority won't do this; no matter how low the priority, a running engine will still suck down all the fuel.  Careful setup of crossfeed enable/disable might do the job, but it'd be easier to just have a dedicated tank.  An FL-T100 or toroidal would be plenty for a longish mission, generally, if I could be sure the maneuver engines wouldn't suck down the fuel.

I ran into a problem the just yesterday that could be relevant.

The fuel doesn't flow through a heatshield. For engines anyway. I bypassed the shield with a hose (External Fuel Duct) for my problem.

Perhaps a small shield between the ship and fuel cell?

 

ME

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5 hours ago, Zeiss Ikon said:

An FL-T100 or toroidal would be plenty for a longish mission, generally, if I could be sure the maneuver engines wouldn't suck down the fuel.

Radially: a small hardpoint or a Jr docking port with crossfeed disabled can be attached radially anywhere you wish at minimal mass penalty; slap a toroidal or an Oscar-B on it, and the fuel cell on the tank. This is the easiest because you don't even need to worry about disrupting other fuel flow on the craft. Bonus: you get to decouple the tank & fuel cell if you ever expend the dedicated fuel.

Stacked inline: TR-18A - FL-T100 - TR-18A (or TR-2V - Oscar-B - TR-2V for 0.625m), fuel cells on the tank, disable crossfeed and staging on the decouplers, bypass the section with fuel lines as necessary to enable unhindered fuel flow between the rest of the craft. The TR-18As can be offset into the tank without looking bad, so it only adds a few parts and just the length of the one tank to the craft.

 

Edited by swjr-swis
forum quoting shenanigans, and fuel cells can't be attached to toroidals
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4 hours ago, Zeiss Ikon said:

What I'd rather see with fuel cells is the ability to dedicate a small Lf/O tank to fuel cell operation -- so if I burn my tanks dry with (say) a Kerbin return insertion burn, I don't have to get home on just the installed batteries (with no more way to recharge them, if I've installed fuel cells instead of solar panels).  Flow priority won't do this; no matter how low the priority, a running engine will still suck down all the fuel.  Careful setup of crossfeed enable/disable might do the job, but it'd be easier to just have a dedicated tank.  An FL-T100 or toroidal would be plenty for a longish mission, generally, if I could be sure the maneuver engines wouldn't suck down the fuel.

That's why I created an mm patch to use the hydrazine from the rcs thrusters rather than the lox

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5 hours ago, Martian Emigrant said:

I ran into a problem the just yesterday that could be relevant.

The fuel doesn't flow through a heatshield. For engines anyway. I bypassed the shield with a hose (External Fuel Duct) for my problem.

Perhaps a small shield between the ship and fuel cell?

 

ME

Well, it does if it's monopropellant.  I haven't tried a heat shield separating Lf/O tanks from the rest of the ship, but I seem to recall that they have a crossfeed toggle, too (defaults off, just like a docking clamp or stack decoupler).

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1 hour ago, Zeiss Ikon said:

Well, it does if it's monopropellant.  I haven't tried a heat shield separating Lf/O tanks from the rest of the ship, but I seem to recall that they have a crossfeed toggle, too (defaults off, just like a docking clamp or stack decoupler).

Hi.

 

I thought so too. but I couldn’t find it built or in the VAB.

 

ME

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1 hour ago, Martian Emigrant said:

Hi.

 

I thought so too. but I couldn’t find it built or in the VAB.

 

ME

Well, I just went and looked, and apparently it's not an option.  So, if you have a tank you want to contribute to your entire vessel, don't put a heat shield behind it.  I've had fuel cells that seemed to work when mounted on the command pod, however, with the pod's heat shield between them and the service or transfer stage's tank(s).  Maybe I'm confused at how fuel cells work -- the in-game documents aren't very clear on that, as with many other things.

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58 minutes ago, Zeiss Ikon said:

Well, I just went and looked, and apparently it's not an option.  So, if you have a tank you want to contribute to your entire vessel, don't put a heat shield behind it.  I've had fuel cells that seemed to work when mounted on the command pod, however, with the pod's heat shield between them and the service or transfer stage's tank(s).  Maybe I'm confused at how fuel cells work -- the in-game documents aren't very clear on that, as with many other things.

The only thing I can think is to test it.

That's how I knew that the heatshield for sure doesn’t let the fuel through. And that was recent.

Monopropellant doesn't follow the same rules as LF. Maybe Fuel cells are like the MP or a new set of rules again. IDK either at this point.

 

ME

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