Powering a drilling platform

[Red Shirt]

Thanks to you all, I now have a grasp of how to scan for resources and have located a level spot to mine. I have begun designing my drilling platform for a refueling base on Mun. I know Minmus would be easier but...

The platform will be permanent. I plan to truck the fuel to a shuttle. My platform plan is to start with an engineer in a cupola, then use two large ore holding tanks and four drills. I learned real fast that if the drills are mounted too close to the ground it will shake the platform unmercifully. Raised them and added struts, just in case.

Above the tanks is the ISRU. On the sides I've mounted duel Rockomax X200-32 empty fuel tanks (half an orange tank each). Above that is an empty RCS tank. I mounted the side tanks on a structural pylon but will probably change these to eliminate the possibility of accidental decoupling. I ran a fuel line from the holding tanks to the LFO tanks. It works though maybe it would without them? Couldn't find any mention of this.

I have 4 large radiator panels for heat control - is that still necessary? Doesn't matter, they look cool. I also have enough gigantor solar arrays to completely power the platform during daylight hours and fully charge the battery.

Now the point of all the previous ramble - how do I power this at night? At the moment I have single Z-4K. At 4000 units with drills drawing 15/s each, I can watch it quickly depleting once the sun sets. I doubt I could carry enough batteries to matter. The alternatives I see are fuel cells which require LFO to work (seems to defeat the purpose) or just running out of juice (down time). Would it be better to only have one drill but multiple platforms with more batteries? It looks like it takes a very long time to mine and convert fuel, so I was trying to speed things up. Is there a clever way to keep things running around the clock?

Edited September 12, 2015 by Red Shirt

[Slam_Jones]

If you are not against mods, I'd recommend the Near Future lines of mods, particularly Near Future Electric, which includes Nuclear generators that can run for many many years. Installing one would not only give you continuous power, but it would put your radiators to work as well

The only other options I can think of are very part-heavy (i.e. tons of RTGs) or generally impractical (send up a probe with a giant battery to collect energy, return it to base).

Here's a pic of my current Munar set-up:

The top of the tower (where it shrinks inward and then out again) is the generator. This is the smallest one available, at 0.625m, and is able to produce 50/s charge for a solid 8 years. If you turn down the power from 100%, it will last longer.

During the day I can usually turn it down to 5%, or off completely, and let the solar panels do the work. To have both drills running in the dead of night, I usually only have to set the generator to the 80 - 90% range. Make sure you have radiators, or your generator will overheat and become useless.

By the way, the radiators you have are probably unnecessary for your current set-up.

Edited September 11, 2015 by Slam_Jones

[Nori]

I second Near Future Tech mods. He also has capacitors which act as a backup power storage.

Next the fuel cell (array) only draws fuel when it is needed, so you can keep it running at all times and it'll hardly be used during the day. I'm not sure on the specifics, but your drills would likely outdrill/convert the fuel cells usage. I might be wrong though.

[Red Shirt]

@ WildLynx - Thanks for the reminder about a locked battery (and fuel tank) I forgot this on my initial design.

@ Nori - Thanks for the fuel cell info. I will probably try this route first.

@Slam_Jones - I have Near Future downloaded. I just haven't installed it yet. I was waiting for my first Sarnus mission in the near future I see from your setup you only have one ore tank. I guess I am thinking too big. It looks like you are using KAS for the pipes? It is on my list. I have to use a public WiFi hotspot (Starbucks) to download bigger stuff and haven't done it yet. I was planning to use the claw for now. I love your shuttle/hauler. I had something similar, but far more boring, started. After seeing your craft, I am already seeing revisions in my future.

[Clipperride]

http://www.prism.gatech.edu/~bnichols8/projects/kspdarkness/main.shtml

Is a calculator that works out how much power you need to run through the night. It's a lot! Useful tool for planning your missions

You just need to enter 0 for Apo and Peri for ground based operations.

[cantab]

Yeah, since you can't deplete the ore you can run mining equipment off fuel cells. In a decent deposit one unit of LFO into the fuel cell will drill and refine more than one unit.

[tbarcello]

@ WildLynx - Thanks for the reminder about a locked battery (and fuel tank) I forgot this on my initial design.

@ Nori - Thanks for the fuel cell info. I will probably try this route first.

@Slam_Jones - I have Near Future downloaded. I just haven't installed it yet. I was waiting for my first Sarnus mission in the near future I see from your setup you only have one ore tank. I guess I am thinking too big. It looks like you are using KAS for the pipes? It is on my list. I have to use a public WiFi hotspot (Starbucks) to download bigger stuff and haven't done it yet. I was planning to use the claw for now. I love your shuttle/hauler. I had something similar, but far more boring, started. After seeing your craft, I am already seeing revisions in my future.

So, loosing even 1/s energy during the night on Mun means 69,492 energy storage requirement, loosing poweris not an option for 6/7 drilling operation.

This means you will have to equip fuel cells.

When taking into account, that a single ISRU can produce 0.45/0.55/s LFOX, and requires 30/s electricity and 0.5/s ore, you will have to install 2 drills, which in turn will produce 0.5/s ore on ideal 100% spot with engineer lvl 0, with lvl 1 - on 55% reach spot, lvl 2 - 38%, lvl 3 - 29%, and will require another 30/s electricity.

Above will require 3 gigantor panels in solar mode and 4 fuel cell arrays in nonsolar mode.

This will net you +12 electricity, +0.369/0.451 LFOX per second, which will fill the orange fuel tank jumbo64 in 2 hours and 10 minutes.

Giving you want to fill only that tank, you could alternatively have electricity storage of 468000...

I'd go for fuel cells.

PS: I hate math...

Edited September 12, 2015 by tbarcello

[Slam_Jones]

-snip-

@Slam_Jones - I have Near Future downloaded. I just haven't installed it yet. I was waiting for my first Sarnus mission in the near future I see from your setup you only have one ore tank. I guess I am thinking too big. It looks like you are using KAS for the pipes? It is on my list. I have to use a public WiFi hotspot (Starbucks) to download bigger stuff and haven't done it yet. I was planning to use the claw for now. I love your shuttle/hauler. I had something similar, but far more boring, started. After seeing your craft, I am already seeing revisions in my future.

Indeed, connector ports from KAS/KIS, when connected, make those particular pipes. The ore tank being that size was mostly trying to save on weight/part count.

Despite this, I can fill up the big tank on the left within a Munar day. Technically, the big tank of the left there was meant to just sit there and collect the fuel, and distribute it to incoming transports (also to provide power via solar panels, and the radiators I forgot for the nuclear generator ._.) I realized after landing it that I could use it itself to transport the fuel up to the Munar station and still have some fuel left (possibly enough to de-orbit back to the miner... might be able to deliver a bigger payload, even).

Haven't tested to see if it's more efficient in that way than my dedicated fuel transport. (The transport involves a Rockomax X200-32 as the payload, with three FL-T800 tank attached radially, with a Terrier attached to each. (And SAS, probe core, RCS, etc) I have it set-up without fuel lines, so it won't pull any fuel from the payload. Has enough dv to take the payload up to the orbital station at 180km x 190km, deposit it, then return to the miner before refueling).

Personally, I haven't used Fuel Cells to power anything really, but it might well be a really good option. Worth testing, IMO.

[Kryxal]

Fuel cells work well if you have an engineer ... if you don't, you end up using more fuel than you make, and should go with batteries or shut down for the night.

[Seajay]

The easiest solution is to set it running during the day, switch to another ship, warp through the night and when you come back you'll find that somehow it managed to mine all night (because power consumption stopped being modeled while the ship wasn't active) .

This may not be the most realistic way to do it so depending on your play style you might not want to but it works.

[Ripper2900]

That's my experience too. Warp at 1000x, and you can mine, convert, the whole shebang without loosing power.

I also think that it won't run out of power if you switch to space center or another craft.

[Red Shirt]

Thought I would add an update in case anyone has this question in the future. I way over thought and over designed for this mining platform. I tested the solar panels at the launching pad with the drills and ISRU in full operation. When I realized how many gigantor panels it took I thought I would never make it through a night of mining. I added 6 fuel cell arrays. I was afraid it would use more fuel than I was mining. Silly me. Started drilling during the night. Filled two large ore holding tanks, two Rockomax X200-32 fuel tanks, two FL-R1 RCS fuel tanks, then refilled the ore tanks and completely recharged all the fuel cells. Now to work on the fuel shuttle.

Here is a sunrise picture of my 60T over designed beauty. Mun Base Alpha is in the background.