What's wrong with the RTG?

[Foxster]

I tend to use at least one RTG on every craft. It's more reliable than solar power. 

Problem is though it seems buggy for heat. It doesn't matter where you place it on a craft, it always seems to overheat and explode first of all the parts. You can't seem to protect it from re-entry heating very well with occlusion. And also it seems sometimes to just not cool down. 

I've had a look through it's config file and I just don't understand these well enough to understand where the problem might be. Anyone know what is "wrong" here?

[Joco223]

@Foxster My RTG rearly overheat, but i think you need put on some radiator panels

Edited February 15, 2016 by Joco223

[Kertech]

I think my rtg has a bug cause as soon as I put one on it makes the ship explode as soon as it gets into space, that was back in 1.0.4 days though, I just got used to not having them so...

[cubinator]

RTGs actually generate heat naturally, that's why they overheat faster than other parts. You might be able to make it better by adding radiator panels to your ship.

[Foxster]

9 minutes ago, cubinator said:

RTGs actually generate heat naturally, that's why they overheat faster than other parts. You might be able to make it better by adding radiator panels to your ship.

I can see that. Doesn't really explain though why it heats up so quickly during re-entry, even when occluded. 

[hoojiwana]

12 minutes ago, Foxster said:

I can see that. Doesn't really explain though why it heats up so quickly during re-entry, even when occluded. 

They have a lower maximum heat value (1200) than most other parts (2000), that might be the cause.

[Foxster]

9 minutes ago, hoojiwana said:

They have a lower maximum heat value (1200) than most other parts (2000), that might be the cause.

I suppose that is probably at least part of it. 

[KerikBalm]

so far I haven't had any problems with them, pics of an example craft? are you occluding them by part clipping, or are they inside a service/cargo bay?

[Bill Zarr]

19 minutes ago, Foxster said:

Doesn't really explain though why it heats up so quickly during re-entry, even when occluded.

I'd think they would still heat up via conduction even if they are occluded, if the parent part they are attached to is hotter. Then again since passive radiators are currently bugged and draw in heat from places they shouldn't maybe this is happening to the RTG. The thermal debug info might shed some more light on what exactly is happening.

One solution is to stick them in a cargo/service bay to protect them. At least sticking it indside a cargo bay worked for me when I ran into this problem.

[ExtremeSquared]

Conductive heating and timewarp is still buggy. I'm hoping the 1.11 release ends up being 100% bug squashing.

[AlamoVampire]

@ExtremeSquared Tell us oh future man what are the versions like beyond 1.1.0? Srsly tho, no patch anywhere on anything is 100% bug free. Ever. But I hope lotsa bugs get skished tho

[ExtremeSquared]

Somewhere around 0.23.5 or so there was a purely bugfix and optimization release. It was a good day.

[John FX]

I put them attached to a large mass, every time I put them on a cubic strut for example they just get hotter and hotter and don`t cool down until something explodes, even with radiators.

They seem buggy to me, the ability to put radiators directly on them would be nice.

[yorshee]

The only time RTGs have ever exploded for me is when I have a ton of them inside a service bay/cargo bay/fairing, so the heat they produce can't escape. If you have KER or any other mod that tells you the thermal information of your ship, and you have ignore max temperature enabled in the debug menu, does anything blatantly buggy show when they're overheating (i.e. temperature going to infinity)?

[juanml82]

2 hours ago, Bill Zarr said:

I'd think they would still heat up via conduction even if they are occluded, if the parent part they are attached to is hotter. Then again since passive radiators are currently bugged and draw in heat from places they shouldn't maybe this is happening to the RTG. The thermal debug info might shed some more light on what exactly is happening.

They do. What I do is to put a small(ish) tank inside the bay to soak heat (and to add some fuel) and then attach the RTGs there. Don't attach them directly to something that's in contact with the airflow.