[0.25] Dibnah Engineering - Water Splitting (and more to come)

[Aedile]

Ramarren and this is exactly what I'm asking - does it actually work.

I did in fact try with different generators, NF, USI, interstellar, B9 and got various results. I also tried it with different amount of batteries.

Then the other puzzlement I had was the whole EC to J conversion.

If the splitter really assumes 1J=1EC, the ridiculously low amount of split water is not a surprise.

[Ramarren]

The ratio is directly copied from Universal Storage Elektron part, just with bigger multiplier. According to that thread Universal Storage uses 1EC=33J. Which unfortunately is indeed completely different than what seems to be used by nuclear reactor mods.

[John FX]

Right, so even worse according to your math.

And BTW I also made another error. I asked if 1EC is 1 Watt, when I should have been asking, if 1EC is 1J.

Power has no time element. W = V*A.

A 2MW reactor provides 2MW of power. Time has no bearing on this. The work of said reactor would be both 2MW*s or 2MJ, or 2MW*h. Note this is not MW/s but it's power multiplied by time.

So if 1EC=1kJ, 1EC/s will be 1kJ/s, or that is 1kW. And yes 2000EC/s will be 2MJ/s or 2MW.

However I don't believe 1 EC = 1KJ. I think it's more close to 100J than 1000J. Thing is depends on which part you look (talking about stock) they seem to be rather arbitrary. For example a lamp uses 0.04EC/s. So if we go with 1J=1EC that would make said lamp 0.04W. Yes the RTGs in KSP are ridiculous. They provide same power as the nontracking panels. In reality, a cheap trailer solar panel will easily provide 60-100Watts. So if 1EC/s = 1W = 1J/s, a typical solar panel should provide 60-100EC/s. Like you said a battery would have 1.41Wh, or 5076J, so if 1EC = 1J, batteries should be 5000EC or more...

And yes water splitting is not particularly efficient in real life. A water splitter they are building in Germany, requires around 40MW of power (yes it's big installation), and should be able to produce roughly 2 tons of hydrogen a day, by splitting around 36 tons of water...

Joules, of course. I forgot that 1 Watt is 1 joule per second.

I must say I was quite surprised then I realised that it would take 50 batteries to match 1 AAA and that not even the largest was as large...

Even if the numbers are out by a factor of 1000 (kj not j) then the smallest battery is the same size as 20AAA batteries, still not a great deal but in the realms of reality.

There seems to be a bit of conformity needing enforcing.

EDIT : I just realised.

"the RTGs in KSP are ridiculous. They provide same power as the nontracking panels. In reality, a cheap trailer solar panel will easily provide 60-100Watts"

The RTGs are supposed to put out 70j which puts them right in the ballpark you mention along with the smallest non tracking panel. We may have found our yardstick.

This suggests even more strongly that 1EC=100j so that a panel making 0.75EC (45/min) is making 75W or 75j

That would make the batteries equivalent to 2AAA batteries for the smallest one and 40 AAA batteries for the largest. These seem too small. This may explain why they are massless too.

This would mean the largest panels are making 18EC=1800j or a 1.8Kw panel which sounds right to me.

EDIT 2:

using 1EC=100j the lamp using 0.04EC is using 4w, about right for LED lights.

Edited November 27, 2014 by John FX

[Deadpan110]

Possible alternative configuration WIP for liquidHydrogen mentioned here.

As for Dibnah Engineering - I will extend the 'optional' ModuleManager configs to enable automatic Oxygen venting without the need to manually intervene with an option to also cut power consumption by 33% should anyone feel it would suit their game better.

If these values are still not correct, I encourage modification of the configs (preferably via ModuleManager so as updating will not stomp on any changes) so a player can tune them to their liking.

[DasValdez]

Dead?

[Axelord FTW]

Dead?

I think the functionality is incorporated into Karbonite now, or something.

Or maybe not, I do recall Water, LH2 and O2 being being resources in-or-out of a converter/distiller but I'm not 100% sure.

I'd have to check when I get home.

[Deadpan110]

I think the functionality is incorporated into Karbonite now, or something.

Or maybe not, I do recall Water, LH2 and O2 being being resources in-or-out of a converter/distiller but I'm not 100% sure.

I'd have to check when I get home.

Oh wow, I was initially going to update for 0.90 and make use of RoverDude's Regolith as it has basically superseded the USI-Converters used in this mod - but I assumed there was no longer a need to create LiquidHydrogen in this way.

This was (and still is) my first ever attempt at making a mod and I learned quickly that Hydrogen production from water is not as easy as it seems and can make for frustrating gameplay if this mod is used with the more realistic default settings.

I will look into updating later tonight (thank you for your interest DasValdez and Axelord FTW).