Out of Electrical Charge

[Pinchy]

Hi - This may have been asked so apologies if it is a known issue - but as I have a modded version of the program - running amongst other things - Dmagic Orbital Science.

So I have a Minmus Orbiter that has 4 x Stock Oxstat 2x3 Solar Panels and 2 x Z400 Batteries. My problem is that I have Solar charge going to the panels but the batteries are not charging - it increases slightly and then back to 0 again. The problem is that all of my science instruments (Scanner/Telescope/ etc/etc - you name it) are all running and obviously taking the charge.

Is there a way that I can turn off the instruments to allow the batteries to recharge. Whenever I click on anything it kind of just flash/glitches and I can't do anything with my probe. Apart from sending an Engineer on an EVA using KAS mods to bolt on some new Solar panels - is there anything else I can do or is it now effectively a dead probe?

It would be handy if all instruments just powered down when they were out of charge (like SAS)?

[ColKlonk]

If you 'Right Click' on each instrument, there should be an option to toggle it Activate/Deactivate (On/Off).

You might have Antenna range mod (or something similar) installed, where you need 'line-of-sight' with the Ground Control station in order to control the probe.

With no sun or comms.. your probe is virtually dead until it comes into view of the ground station again - don't forget to place decent aerials on the probe.

I haven't tried on a probe, but put mechjeb (auto-flight computer) on it and set up the flight parameters - this might help.

[Pinchy]

Thanks ColKlonk - No I don't have that mod installed - the craft was perfectly in control around minmus as I was just changing my plane to pick up science from the Biomes when I had battery power - but as soon as power hit 0 - I lost all control of it - I have time accelerated 1000 for a few complete orbits of Minmus to see if I can get enough charge to deactivate instruments but to no avail - when I click on the main "stock" scanner I have double click/left click/right click - nothing happens at all - I get no information whatsoever.

[steve_v]

You can do this by modifying your save file: Either find the offending experiment part and change Deployed = True to False, or similarly modify the ElectricCharge value and FlowState of a battery to fill it and lock it - thus giving you time to shut down instruments in game.

It's an annoying race that renders the activate/deactivate buttons in the context menu unusable, and it is wise to lock a small battery in the VAB for this reason.

Or use hyperedit.

Edited June 15, 2015 by steve_v

[ColKlonk]

Try manually transferring charge (Alt+LClick) from the panels to the battery - maybe this is a new trick in V1.02 (A connection link between the battery and panels ?)

I'm not sure whether items work in accelerated mode... try 1x mode in the sun.

Otherwise we might be looking at another bug.

Edt... ah.. I remember what Steve says from V0.90 i think it was..

[steve_v]

It would be easily fixed, by making instruments shut down (and stay shut down) when out of power... why this is not already the case I do not know.

[Pinchy]

Yeah - totally agree Steve - that it makes no sense whatsoever that the default position is not to shut everything down as soon as batteries hit "critical level" and get a warning as well!

- - - Updated - - -

Thanks - I will have a look at seeing if I can edit the items from deployed = true to false then

[steve_v]

Assuming that's the key, if they're mod parts they could have other modules. Make a backup of course.

[Pinchy]

yeah - thanks - I will see what I can see tonight - I am not a Dev by any means - so could be fun - I will try the suggestion by ColKlonk as well - but I think the power going from the panels to the batteries is not the problem - just that the instruments are constantly running and as soon as power gets to 0.1 some instrument just takes it again.

I have made a suggestion in the relevant thread to fix this.

[Pinchy]

Thanks for all the advice - it seems that I managed to get some power back enough to disable a couple of instruments and now my probe is fully functional and performing selective science. Lesson learned to take a backup battery for future builds.