Is the cargo bay weak?

[miklkit]

Question.  I have had 2 MK3 rovers break and really do not know why.  They are fuel trucks and they have been quite reliable for a long time, then recently 2 of them broke, first on Ike and then on Laythe.  This is concerning as I do not know why they started breaking.  Any ideas?

[king of nowhere]

the cargo bay is very strong, in those cases it looks like what failed is the attachment between cargo bay and crew pod.

i had no similar problem when i made a rover with mk3 parts, but in any case autostrutting should help.

[s_gamer101]

Yes, autostruts or just struts in general. If you put a long, heavy construction in a cargobay you should always use some (auto)struts, otherwise it won't be very stable.

[miklkit]

I have strutted up that joint in the latest models and so far they are holding together.   It just bothers me that they were fine for a very long time and then suddenly got weak.

[Lt_Duckweed]

Based on the images of the deconstruction it looks like you attached the whole isru kit to the bay end node and attached the cockpit to the  isru setup, then offset.  This means you have spindly, offset joints, which can be prone to breaking.  Attach the Cockpit to the cargo bay directly, then attach the isru to one of the nodes on the inside of the bay.

Also, for what it's worth, your current radiator setup is extreme overkill.  Since the drills are attached to the fuel tank, and the isru to the cargo bay, a single large fixed radiator panel on the bay and 2 on the fuel tank is plenty.

Edited April 6, 2023 by Lt_Duckweed

[miklkit]

Well actually I built the rover and then installed the stuff in the cargo bay.  At first the problem was the ISRU and ore tanks breaking free while driving around, but that got fixed eventually by attaching structural boxes to the end nodes and then attaching to them, plus struts.  That was done to the first ones that landed on Mun and all was well for quite a long time.   This is an early one with all the struts broken and the only thing holding it in place are the RTGs on the other end.

I don't know if the cooling is extreme overkill as I have seen those things glowing red.  Closer to the sun things can get a little toasty.

[king of nowhere]

7 hours ago, miklkit said:

I don't know if the cooling is extreme overkill as I have seen those things glowing red.  Closer to the sun things can get a little toasty.

I've seen the radiators pop red when I was not doing any isru and was farther than eeloo.

heat management has some bugs.