Mining and Overheating

[NewtSoup]

On Rura Penthe I am running

a convert-o-tron 250 which requires  200 KW of Cooling and a Max Cooling of 750 KW
two Drill'o'matic excavators requiring 200 KW between them and a max of 200KW between each

this seems to be a total of 400kw required

my base has 4 x Medium Thermal Control System fins  - each with a core heat xfer of 250 KW, max cooling of 19494 KW

surely this would be more than enough to keep everything cool, so why are the fins glowing red hot, running at more than 100% ( keeps flickering to 100.5%) and sparking?

I shut down the drills and ore processing ( the tanks were all full anyway) to stop explosions happening.  The picture below shows my base layout.  

Is in fact happeneing because all the tanks got full?

[Aegolius13]

Are you using more than one of the converter modes at the same time?  E.g., do you have it making LF, oxidizer, and LF+O at the same time?  I believe each of these modes counts as a separate heat source when it's active.  So you may need more radiators if you want to run several at once.

Full fuel tanks should not be causing any trouble with heat. 

[Cpt Kerbalkrunch]

The bottom-right corner of your screen isn't visible. What level engineer do you have on-board? In my experience (and I've done a ton of mining), the most common issue with over-heating is the lack of a good engineer. It's not always possible (especially early on), but a four or five star engineer is a must for a good mining operation (IMO).

[NewtSoup]

My Engineer at this base is only 2 star.  I guess I'm still only early game having only been to the Mun and Minmus so far ( a couple of my Kerbals have been to a solar orbit, but only 2 scientists and a pilot ) and I still have a few boxes to go on the tech tree ( 3 of the 300's, most of the 550s and all the 1000's).. I hadn't realised they affected cooling as well as the rate of ore production and conversion.  I can easily add more cooling if that's going to be the issue but basically I want this base to just run 24/7 with no interaction other than when I want to siphon off the fuel to another ship.
 

[Cpt Kerbalkrunch]

19 minutes ago, NewtSoup said:

My Engineer at this base is only 2 star.  I guess I'm still only early game having only been to the Mun and Minmus so far ( a couple of my Kerbals have been to a solar orbit, but only 2 scientists and a pilot ) and I still have a few boxes to go on the tech tree ( 3 of the 300's, most of the 550s and all the 1000's).. I hadn't realised they affected cooling as well as the rate of ore production and conversion.  I can easily add more cooling if that's going to be the issue but basically I want this base to just run 24/7 with no interaction other than when I want to siphon off the fuel to another ship.
 

Yeah, they really do make a huge difference. Since your ore tanks are full, maybe just leave one drill running while you're off doing something else. That should be enough to keep the ore rolling in while your converter works on the ore you already have. The thermal control systems are great, to me, because they take heat from anywhere on the ship. They don't have to be near the heat-source. And they work better than radiators. I don't think I've ever seen them get too hot before.

[NewtSoup]

Given that I should have more than enough cooling I'm wondering if it was simply a glitch as I'd left it alone for hours before that.  I belive having multiple engineers helps too?  The presence of a second engineer stacking with the first?

I've finished my going to minmus thread with a video of retreiving the final batch of ore from Rura Penthe and transferring it to Kerbin. Via Minmus station and the ore barg.  3050 was a huge amount to acquire.

Incidentally - "Land your ore at kerbin" means LAND.. not splash down. First attempt splashed down in the ocean and didn't get the mission complete.  I got all the ticks bar "Land your Ore"

Edited August 17, 2017 by NewtSoup

[Blaarkies]

1 hour ago, NewtSoup said:

I belive having multiple engineers helps too?  The presence of a second engineer stacking with the first?

No, not at all. Only the highest ranking engineer counts. 

https://wiki.kerbalspaceprogram.com/wiki/Engineer

Level	Effects provided	Harvesting/Conversion Multiplier	G Tolerance
☆☆☆☆☆	None	25%	1x
★☆☆☆☆	Repack parachutes	45%	1.1x
★★☆☆☆	Repair lander legs	65%	1.2x
★★★☆☆	Repair wheels	85%	1.3x
★★★★☆	None	105%	1.4x
★★★★★	None	125%	1.5x

[NewtSoup]

It's a glitch, and a reproducable one.  When I turn on both drills and LfOx production on the convertotron I can run it on time warp for several days and the load on the TCS doesn't go over 25% ( with full fuel and ore tanks oddly )  However when I go back to "normal" time the heat ramps up very quickly to overheat levels.

[Cpt Kerbalkrunch]

50 minutes ago, NewtSoup said:

It's a glitch, and a reproducable one.  When I turn on both drills and LfOx production on the convertotron I can run it on time warp for several days and the load on the TCS doesn't go over 25% ( with full fuel and ore tanks oddly )  However when I go back to "normal" time the heat ramps up very quickly to overheat levels.

I wonder if that's one of the things covered in the 1.3.1 patch coming out? I know I heard something about drills overheating due to a bug, but I haven't experienced it (just the action group problem, which is definitely in the patch I've heard). At any rate, good detective work.

[bewing]

The way it runs during timewarp is a glitch.

Active cooling systems intentionally absorb all the heat they can handle from all the parts of the ship they can reach. They are "smart". They only absorb as much as they can handle and no more. You don't ever have to worry about them exploding from overheating, but they will try to always run as close to 100% as they can -- because that is their maximum efficiency level. They "pump" heat out of the parts they are cooling into themselves -- so they try to get themselves much hotter than ambient temperature so they can reject their excess heat to the environment.

As far as the cooling calculations go, you need to understand that there is "core" heat and regular heat. The 100kW per drill and 200kW per ISRU channel is core heat. The 250kW max for the medium TCS is also for core heat. So your 4 TCS radiators give you 1000kW of core heat cooling -- enough for 2 ISRU channels and 6 drills simultaneously. After that, your TCS systems will pull regular heat out of the rest of your base until they hit 100% load. Which will make your base quite icy to the touch.

 

 

 

[NewtSoup]

Quote

The way it runs during timewarp is a glitch.

Active cooling systems intentionally absorb all the heat they can handle from all the parts of the ship they can reach. They are "smart". They only absorb as much as they can handle and no more. You don't ever have to worry about them exploding from overheating, but they will try to always run as close to 100% as they can -- because that is their maximum efficiency level. They "pump" heat out of the parts they are cooling into themselves -- so they try to get themselves much hotter than ambient temperature so they can reject their excess heat to the environment.

Thanks, good to know they won't explode then.

 

Quote

After that, your TCS systems will pull regular heat out of the rest of your base until they hit 100% load. Which will make your base quite icy to the touch.

Absolutely fine.  Rura Penthe is a cold, cold place.