Breaking Ground missing part (imo), rotary electric generators.

[GoldForest]

Basically what it says. I think Squad missed out on adding a new form of electricity, electric friction/rotary generators. 

Now, I have no idea where rotors are in the career mode tech tree, but imagine they are far down the road. 

So i was thinking, why not give us a way to take all that rotational energy and turn it into electrical energy.

Now i know what you're probably thinking. Too OP, basically free perpetual energy at no cost. And you'd be right, but the generators could be set to supply a lower energy amount than what the rotors need to run. But now you're making the generator useless by making it provide no benefit at a cost, right? Not if you allow daisy chaining. That's right, placing multiple rotary generators and connecting them end to end so the rotary energy is transferred between all of them. 

It's not the best setup, but I'd imagine that rotary generators could be quite useful. As for the ratios, I'm not a modder nor do I know how to balance a game, but I would imagine a 1:5 ratio would be fair enough, at least for the large rotor. 1 rotor:5 generators. 

And given that rotors maintain rotation after being turned off, you get a gain in energy because you're not wasting electricity.

Just a thought I had. Would like to hear what others have to say on this. 

[RealKerbal3x]

That sound like a great idea from my perspective. You could have regenerative braking for vehicles (like most RL electric cars), and if they implemented wind as well you could build a wind turbine as an alternate method of generating power.

Edited June 4, 2019 by RealKerbal3x

[GoldForest]

1 minute ago, RealKerbal3x said:

That sound like a great idea from my perspective. You could have regenerative braking for vehicles (like most RL electric cars), and if they implemented wind as well you could build a wind turbine as an alternate method of generating power.

I forgot about that, but yeah. That could happen too. Wind mills, kerbal mills(basically a kerbal pushing a wing around a rotor), jet mills(het powered wind mills). Though, I doubt Squad will add wind any time soon, as calculating wind effects would be quite the resource hog. 

[RealKerbal3x]

2 minutes ago, GoldForest said:

I forgot about that, but yeah. That could happen too. Wind mills, kerbal mills(basically a kerbal pushing a wing around a rotor), jet mills(het powered wind mills). Though, I doubt Squad will add wind any time soon, as calculating wind effects would be quite the resource hog. 

Well, it could always be an option that defaults to off.

[Geonovast]

 

11 minutes ago, GoldForest said:

And given that rotors maintain rotation after being turned off, you get a gain in energy because you're not wasting electricity.

Generating electricity by spinning a rotor/motor isn't free energy.  Something has to be putting energy into that thing to make it spin.  Even in a frictionless environment, the generation of electricity would "push back" on the flywheel, slow it down, and stop it.

[GoldForest]

8 minutes ago, Geonovast said:

 

Generating electricity by spinning a rotor/motor isn't free energy.  Something has to be putting energy into that thing to make it spin.  Even in a frictionless environment, the generation of electricity would "push back" on the flywheel, slow it down, and stop it.

I meant to say maintain rotation for a little bit. I know it wont spin forever.

[Geonovast]

While I think it would be cool, in some situations, to implement that, I think there are just too many issues to overcome to make it happen.  The main one being that all motion stops when you switch away from a vessel or timewarp.  So even if you had a flywheel spinning that was attached to a generator, you'd have to just sit and watch it do its thing.

Regenerative braking would be a pretty good application, though, especially if you're in the outer system and solar isn't really an option.

[GoldForest]

2 minutes ago, Geonovast said:

While I think it would be cool, in some situations, to implement that, I think there are just too many issues to overcome to make it happen.  The main one being that all motion stops when you switch away from a vessel or timewarp.  So even if you had a flywheel spinning that was attached to a generator, you'd have to just sit and watch it do its thing.

Regenerative braking would be a pretty good application, though, especially if you're in the outer system and solar isn't really an option.

Well, I know it's not a good way to generate electricity, but it would at least work while you mess around on the station, and also there's a few roleplay KSPers who spend time outside of time warp. A gravity ring with a rotary generator on it would be able to at least stem the electrical bleeding on the dark side of planets, slowing the rate of energy consumption by giving some back.

[Shadowmage]

5 minutes ago, GoldForest said:

A gravity ring with a rotary generator on it would be able to at least stem the electrical bleeding on the dark side of planets, slowing the rate of energy consumption by giving some back.

No, it wouldn't slow the consumption at all, it would only increase it.  In order to get electricity out of a rotating system, you have to apply drag (in the form of magnetic fields); this drag generates electricity, sure, but it also slows down your spinning.  Notably, you'll require more energy to spin-up back to desired RPM than you would get out of the deceleration (edit:  due to thermal losses/inefficiency in motors, bearings, and electrical transmission).  There is no such thing as free lunch in physics...

 

Edited June 4, 2019 by Shadowmage

[Geonovast]

Exactly.  You'd be better off just leaving it free spinning during the dark time.

[GoldForest]

9 minutes ago, Shadowmage said:

No, it wouldn't slow the consumption at all, it would only increase it.  In order to get electricity out of a rotating system, you have to apply drag (in the form of magnetic fields); this drag generates electricity, sure, but it also slows down your spinning.  Notably, you'll require more energy to spin-up back to desired RPM than you would get out of the deceleration (edit:  due to thermal losses/inefficiency in motors, bearings, and electrical transmission).  There is no such thing as free lunch in physics...

 

Hmmm, so the rotary generator would only work when the rotation is slowing down? It wouldn't work when the rotor was running and actively rotating the ring?

[Geonovast]

1 minute ago, GoldForest said:

Hmmm, so the rotary generator would only work when the rotation is slowing down? It wouldn't work when the rotor was running and actively rotating the ring?

It would, but it would be pointless.  You'd have to put extra energy into the ring in order to fight the resistance of the generator, and would actually end up expending more extra electricity than you gained back.

Electric generation is only practical when you have and outside force that you can syphon from.  Such as wind or water.  Regenerative braking is really only practical because you also want the resistance from the generator to help you slow down.

[GoldForest]

4 minutes ago, Geonovast said:

It would, but it would be pointless.  You'd have to put extra energy into the ring in order to fight the resistance of the generator, and would actually end up expending more extra electricity than you gained back.

Electric generation is only practical when you have and outside force that you can syphon from.  Such as wind or water.  Regenerative braking is really only practical because you also want the resistance from the generator to help you slow down.

Ah, hmmm. I see. Well, I guess if this were to get implemented, we would be seeing a lot of rocket powered gravity rings.

[Geonovast]

Just now, GoldForest said:

Ah, hmmm. I see. Well, I guess if this were to get implemented, we would be seeing a lot of rocket powered gravity rings.

I think the problem there is that it would be more efficient to just use that fuel to power fuel cells instead of rockets.

[Kerbart]

Or squad could just add a wind powered generator that can create electricity at certain planets or moons (and spins when it does so).

Astroneer has that implemented.

[GoldForest]

18 minutes ago, Geonovast said:

I think the problem there is that it would be more efficient to just use that fuel to power fuel cells instead of rockets.

True. Hmmm. Kerbal powered hamster wheel anyone?

 

8 minutes ago, Kerbart said:

Or squad could just add a wind powered generator that can create electricity at certain planets or moons (and spins when it does so).

Astroneer has that implemented.

Astroneer has wind in it. Ksp doesn't. And I think the reason why is because it would be too much of a resource hog. The game already chugs along at anything over 100 parts. Imagine a 100 part base AND wind effects? I would like to maintain the little FPS kerbal is managing lol

[Geonovast]

1 minute ago, GoldForest said:

Astroneer has wind in it. Ksp doesn't. And I think the reason why is because it would be too much of a resource hog. The game already chugs along at anything over 100 parts. Imagine a 100 part base AND wind effects? I would like to maintain the little FPS kerbal is managing lol 

It wouldn't have to have wind.  It could just be based off of atmospheric pressure and provide an "average" EC output off of a calculated average wind speed.  It would have spinning blades, but it would just be for looks.  Essentially use like an RTG but only on the surface of a planet with an atmosphere.

[GoldForest]

23 minutes ago, Geonovast said:

It wouldn't have to have wind.  It could just be based off of atmospheric pressure and provide an "average" EC output off of a calculated average wind speed.  It would have spinning blades, but it would just be for looks.  Essentially use like an RTG but only on the surface of a planet with an atmosphere.

Ah, okay, that makes more sense. And maybe the part could have some slip streams coming off the tips of the blades or dust particles. Nothing major, just a tiny plume. 

[FleshJeb]

I was trying to think of fun stuff to do with storing potential electrical energy in flywheels, when I remembered that pumping fuel doesn't respect conservation of momentum or energy. Spin a wheel up when fuel tanks attached to it are empty; pump fuel over. The angular velocity will remain the same, but the angular momentum and energy will go way up.

I know this has been done already (does it count as Kraken-tech?), but it's fun to think about.

How strong are the brakes on the rotors? I want to fling things off of Minmus using a flywheel and a very long lever arm.

EDITS (just bought BG):

Looks like the Brake Torque on the big rotor is 4500kNm (double that for 200% brakes?). So that's the max flinging torque you can squeeze out of one rotor.

@GoldForest, check the config files. The rotors have an Output Resource line. It just needs to be uncommented.

EDIT2: Need counter-rotating wheels for the flinger to brake after the throw so it doesn't flip over.

EDIT3: That arm is going to have to be one hell of a truss, given the breaking torque on the structural parts. 

Edited June 4, 2019 by FleshJeb

[RocketSquid]

Two notes: 

1: the best way to do this, in my opinion, is to add regenerative braking to the existing rotors.

2: astroneer, as far as I can tell, doesn’t actually model wind, the wind generator just gives constant power within an atmosphere.

[Guest]

1 minute ago, RocketSquid said:

1: the best way to do this, in my opinion, is to add regenerative braking to the existing rotors.

Perpetual motion machine in 3... 2... 1...

(... not a bad thing )

[FleshJeb]

Just now, RocketSquid said:

1: the best way to do this, in my opinion, is to add regenerative braking to the existing rotors.

Go look at the config files.

[RocketSquid]

Just now, FleshJeb said:

Go look at the config files.

Can’t right now.

[Kerbart]

1 hour ago, Geonovast said:

It wouldn't have to have wind.  It could just be based off of atmospheric pressure and provide an "average" EC output off of a calculated average wind speed.  It would have spinning blades, but it would just be for looks.  Essentially use like an RTG but only on the surface of a planet with an atmosphere.

Exactly. It can generate local “wind data” based on some factors (biome, lattitude, time of day, air pressure, random numbers) and spin the blades accordingly.

[Xurkitree]

On 6/4/2019 at 10:59 PM, FleshJeb said:

I was trying to think of fun stuff to do with storing potential electrical energy in flywheels, when I remembered that pumping fuel doesn't respect conservation of momentum or energy. Spin a wheel up when fuel tanks attached to it are empty; pump fuel over. The angular velocity will remain the same, but the angular momentum and energy will go way up.

I know this has been done already (does it count as Kraken-tech?), but it's fun to think about.

How strong are the brakes on the rotors? I want to fling things off of Minmus using a flywheel and a very long lever arm.

EDITS (just bought BG):

Looks like the Brake Torque on the big rotor is 4500kNm (double that for 200% brakes?). So that's the max flinging torque you can squeeze out of one rotor.

@GoldForest, check the config files. The rotors have an Output Resource line. It just needs to be uncommented.

EDIT2: Need counter-rotating wheels for the flinger to brake after the throw so it doesn't flip over.

EDIT3: That arm is going to have to be one hell of a truss, given the breaking torque on the structural parts. 

I still haven't seen a Breaking Ground version of Scott Manley's Inertialess Gyro Drive