[1.12.x] Heat Control - More radiators! (August 18, 2024)

[Nertea]

CKAN support requests belong with CKAN, not me. That being said, the incompatibility with DRE should be resolved with this patch.

[Darth Lazarus]

Nertea ... i love you ... the new parts are awesome

so much possiblities ...

[Trann]

Thanks for these! They will probably save my mission.

Edited June 17, 2015 by Trann

[FletcherDragon]

Would personally like to see some radiators to cover the Mk2 form factor. That would be fun! I tend to cram in mk2 parts in even where they are not necessary cos I love them so much.

also.. Thermal couplings! they are an actual thing that turn thermal energy 'directly' into electric energy.

[Megan]

0.1.2 breaks the Tau. I think you want its TechRequired to be largeElectrics.

[Hellrespawn]

I think the XR-1500-3X description is either missing a sentence or a period.

description = The three large panels on this radiator model are very effective at heat rejection,

[Streetwind]

CKAN is saying this conflicts with DRE and wont allow it to be installed. It allows the "Heat Control Core" to install, but not the "Heat Control"

CKAN support requests belong with CKAN, not me. That being said, the incompatibility with DRE should be resolved with this patch.

I'm already planning to update the metadata when I get home from work today, barring any reports that DRE and radiators still don't play nice together.

[Azimech]

Idea: a dll that monitors the temperature of a part, has a lower and upper temp limit defined via context menu, and switches action groups on/off with the ability to reset or disable itself.

[smjjames]

These new heat exchangers definetly make things more efficient. About halfway into this hour+ (coming up to 1h 30m looks like) long burn and this engine hasn't even reached 900 Kelvin yet with a heat exchanger and four of the XR-6000's.

Also, can I put in a request for a 5m heat exchanger?

Edit: Then again, that was out at Dres, it's heating up faster at Kerbin, though in a more controlled fashion.

Also, question on the heat pipes, are they one directional like fuel pipes are or how do I have them direct heat where I want them to?

Edited June 16, 2015 by smjjames

[acc]

I hope my near sun probe will no longer explode with this patch. there are contracts waiting to get done

[Psycho_zs]

Cool stuff!

Although, IMHO, there is no need for exchangers to be diameter-to-mass proportional. 2.5m exchanger does not need to be so heavy. It could be 2 times flatter and lighter since only conductivity and radiator attachments matter.

[acc]

I've finished my near sun (999.99 Mm) mission. but I had to retract the radiators because they overheated if not. Should they not work better when deployed?

I'm still wondering how the heat stuff exactly works in KSP. Most of the time it makes no sense to me or consufes me completely.

And never warp faster than 100x when you get lower than 2Gm or the radiators (and other parts, even if they get no direct sun light) will explode.

And the heat pipes tendend to overheat anyways. I had to be very carefull to get this mission done, including some quicksave loads.

[Donziboy2]

Maybe some way to throttle the effectiveness of the radiators is in order?

[Jansn]

I think the last Update "broke" all my vessels in flight. Since last update (over CKAN)

each vessel without those parts have extremely fast overheating engines (mostly LV 909 Terrier).

After 10 or max. 20 seconds they explode.

Can someone "confirm" this behavior?

[lajoswinkler]

a) Do both heat pipe endings need heat exchangers or just the heat destination?

For example if there's an asparagus cluster of engines and I want to divert all heat to the central one where the main exchanger with radiators is - can I just use the pipes to transfer heat from lateral tanks holding the engines (because engines don't have mesh to attach stuff to) or do I need exchangers for them, too?

Is the larger exchanger "sucking" heat faster or just has more heat capacity because it has more mass?

Edited June 17, 2015 by lajoswinkler

[Streetwind]

I've finished my near sun (999.99 Mm) mission. but I had to retract the radiators because they overheated if not. Should they not work better when deployed?

They DO work better when deployed. That's why they overheat faster!

Seriously though - it's so hot near the sun that exposed radiators heat up instead of cooling down. You'll have to shield them from the sun somehow.

I think the last Update "broke" all my vessels in flight. Since last update (over CKAN)

each vessel without those parts have extremely fast overheating engines (mostly LV 909 Terrier).

After 10 or max. 20 seconds they explode.

Can someone "confirm" this behavior?

Heat Control doesn't change stock parts. It's possible that something corrupted - KSP does that occasionally. Back up your saves, purge everything KSP-related from the install folder, and do a fresh install (followed by a fresh CKAN download of the mods).

a) Do both heat pipe endings need heat exchangers or just the heat destination?

For example if there's an asparagus cluster of engines and I want to divert all heat to the central one where the main exchanger with radiators is - can I just use the pipes to transfer heat from lateral tanks holding the engines (because engines don't have mesh to attach stuff to) or do I need exchangers for them, too?

Is the larger exchanger "sucking" heat faster or just has more heat capacity because it has more mass?

a) You don't need a heat exchangers at all. They're just very convenient because you cannot generally attach a heatpipe straight up or down a stack of parts of identical size (just like you cannot with struts or fuel lines, either). The heat exchangers have those little bulges for the heatpipe to hook up to, which circumvents that problem.

If you're just trying to connect two parts the heatpipe can easily reach, then you're fine with just the pipe alone.

Heat exchangers don't "suck". Like the insulators, which are their polar opposites, they are fully passive parts. They merely have their conductivity set to a very high value, meaning that they rapidly equalize temperature with neighboring parts. heat flows easily into them and out of them, but it's just the usual stock system's passive heat flow through the vessel. Only the radiators and the heat pipe are active components - they ignore stock conduction and just outright steal heat from their parent. As such, there's no inherent benefit to mounting them to heat exchangers, apart from the fact that the mounting points are really quite convenient.

Exchangers can be useful if you have a massive heat source that doesn't allow the attachment of radiators itself, like LV-N's. Putting one of those on a heat exchanger will make more heat flow out of the LV-N than if it was connected to a tank of the same size as the exchanger (bulkhead size has a giant influencee on heat conduction).

To sum up, there's active parts and there's passive parts. They work differently, and not necessarily well together in all constellations. Whether or not it makes sense to combine them depends on the situation.

Edited June 17, 2015 by Streetwind

[Darth Lazarus]

@ lajosnkler. you can just use teh heatpipes. you don't need to place the big exchnagers. they are meant to have a single part, which collects all the surronding heat and then get rid of it with radiators

for example: stick nuclear engines or high power electrical engines from Nerta's Near Future pack directly to an exchnager to keep them cool.

and the exchanger has a bigger thermal capcity AND it sucks the heat out of the parts sticked to it

@ Jansn sounds lile CKAN broke your mod install. delete teh mod files and update it manualy. maybe this fixes the issue

[Bomoo]

Excellent work as always, sir. Thank you for yet another superbly useful mod.

[MaverickSawyer]

Anyone else notice that the thermal physics kinda breaks down above 100x time warp? I had a reactor going, and my whole ship spiked to over 700 Kelvin the moment I exceeded 100x time warp.

[lajoswinkler]

They DO work better when deployed. That's why they overheat faster!

Seriously though - it's so hot near the sun that exposed radiators heat up instead of cooling down. You'll have to shield them from the sun somehow.

Heat Control doesn't change stock parts. It's possible that something corrupted - KSP does that occasionally. Back up your saves, purge everything KSP-related from the install folder, and do a fresh install (followed by a fresh CKAN download of the mods).

a) You don't need a heat exchangers at all. They're just very convenient because you cannot generally attach a heatpipe straight up or down a stack of parts of identical size (just like you cannot with struts or fuel lines, either). The heat exchangers have those little bulges for the heatpipe to hook up to, which circumvents that problem.

If you're just trying to connect two parts the heatpipe can easily reach, then you're fine with just the pipe alone.

Heat exchangers don't "suck". Like the insulators, which are their polar opposites, they are fully passive parts. They merely have their conductivity set to a very high value, meaning that they rapidly equalize temperature with neighboring parts. heat flows easily into them and out of them, but it's just the usual stock system's passive heat flow through the vessel. Only the radiators and the heat pipe are active components - they ignore stock conduction and just outright steal heat from their parent. As such, there's no inherent benefit to mounting them to heat exchangers, apart from the fact that the mounting points are really quite convenient.

Exchangers can be useful if you have a massive heat source that doesn't allow the attachment of radiators itself, like LV-N's. Putting one of those on a heat exchanger will make more heat flow out of the LV-N than if it was connected to a tank of the same size as the exchanger (bulkhead size has a giant influencee on heat conduction).

To sum up, there's active parts and there's passive parts. They work differently, and not necessarily well together in all constellations. Whether or not it makes sense to combine them depends on the situation.

This is basically (a bit earlier design but it's ok) what I'm dealing with.

Yes, I know heat isn't sucked, I was just simplifying things. I need all of the engines and the electricity generating reactor to transfer heat to the radiator.

Darth Lazarus, you can't connect nuclear engines to anything. They don't have a mesh for that.

MaverickSawyer, yes, it breaks down.

[Darth Lazarus]

This is basically (a bit earlier design but it's ok) what I'm dealing with.

http://images.akamai.steamusercontent.com/ugc/28492187198389977/91F678917BD0B17D72701A8CA4E9F09F11B9C40F/

Yes, I know heat isn't sucked, I was just simplifying things. I need all of the engines and the electricity generating reactor to transfer heat to the radiator.

Darth Lazarus, you can't connect nuclear engines to anything. They don't have a mesh for that.

between the engine and the tank there should be an heat exchanger to suck the heat out of the engine, then use heatpipes and/or radiators

@ MaverickSawyer

it's a stock problem: by timewarp bigger then 100x, the game handles the ship as ONE part instead of all the different parts. which means all heat goes evenlly to everywhere. to prevent sudden explosion, i turn of teh reactor, wait fo a major cooldown of teh radiators with 50x or 100x and then i warp faster.

and it saves on reactor lifetime as well

[MaverickSawyer]

@ MaverickSawyer

it's a stock problem: by timewarp bigger then 100x, the game handles the ship as ONE part instead of all the different parts. which means all heat goes evenlly to everywhere. to prevent sudden explosion, i turn of teh reactor, wait fo a major cooldown of teh radiators with 50x or 100x and then i warp faster.

and it saves on reactor lifetime as well

Hmmm... The long spool-up time makes it hard to do maneuvers, though.

[Darth Lazarus]

Hmmm... The long spool-up time makes it hard to do maneuvers, though.

not when you plan you maneuvers carefully.

when doing an interplanetary transfer, i use kerbal alarm clock to give me a 2 days safe time to power up before a maneuver node. oh and a huge amount of electricity does not hurt...

[lajoswinkler]

between the engine and the tank there should be an heat exchanger to suck the heat out of the engine, then use heatpipes and/or radiators

So, each engine should have an exchanger? Or only the middle one? Will it be enough if I use the pipes to connect lateral tanks to the exchanger?

[Darth Lazarus]

So, each engine should have an exchanger? Or only the middle one? Will it be enough if I use the pipes to connect lateral tanks to the exchanger?

yes, each nuclear engine will need a heatexchanger as heatdump. from tehre you could either use heatpeipes to connect every exchanger to your central radiatorarray or just put radiators on the exchangers.

for the tanks, normaly you don't need to cool then. and because you have the engines "cooled" with the heatexchangersm the tanks shoudl stay cool too. but you can conenct the tanks with heatpipes too teh radiator array.