Electrical system

[seaces]

Hello,

n

So this is what happened to me recently. I am now in program for Minimus and as this is the first time I am going there I have sent an unmanned lander which will be later maned this is only to test it. Anyway got there to Minimus and on my way home the lander lost electrical charge completely despite having lots of 1x1 solar panels. It was drained thanks to the SAS but this shouldn't happen since I had many panels.....Anyway as I got closer to Kerbin (still I had attached lander legs with engine and tank which need to be ejected plus parachutes that cant be deployed, strange that there is no aux.system of deployment) I have noticed that panels are at least to my eyes exposed to the Sun but no charge! So I got a bit sad over a fact that mission will fail and that I will lose all my science collected but then suddenly while my lander was burning through atmosphere the batteries started to charge so I managed to get rid of last stage and activate parachutes. So my question is if I have a probe in space that for some reason loses charge and despite that after losing charge panels gets exposed to Sun they won't charge or they will start charging even if charge is 0?

[Anquietas314]

Have you tried right clicking the panels to see what they say? It's quite possible you managed to damage them, or they've been blocked by some object such as Kerbin or Minmus itself. It might be possible (but very unlikely) for one of the inner planets to block it briefly as well, although I haven't seen that happen myself.

The panels should charge your batteries as long as they have a clear line of sight to the Sun, and are pointing in the right direction.

[Hallofo]

To start, good job on getting a probe to Minimus seaces!

The solar panels will charge a ship/battery from 0 - you can completely drain your charge but still get more. An easy way to see how well a panel is working is to highlight it an right-click; you should get statistics on how much electricity is coming in and if it's blocked by anything.

As you discovered, the tumbling during reentry must have put at least 1 panel in the right spot. Side note: how many is "lots" of 1x1 panels?

[xcorps]

I can confirm that draining bats to zero can cause you not to be able to recharge.

I put a probe into Munar orbit with 4k of juice and 8 solar panels and ran it dry trying to reverse orbit. It went into a tumble on drain and even though the panels were showing good exposure and flow, I was never able to gain any charge. Ion engine was off, sas was off, and I even had time to deactivate all but one of the batteries.

[Anquietas314]

I can confirm that draining bats to zero can cause you not to be able to recharge.

I put a probe into Munar orbit with 4k of juice and 8 solar panels and ran it dry trying to reverse orbit. It went into a tumble on drain and even though the panels were showing good exposure and flow, I was never able to gain any charge. Ion engine was off, sas was off, and I even had time to deactivate all but one of the batteries.

Were you by any chance trying to transmit something, or have anything (including controls!) that might be draining the batteries?

[seaces]

I can confirm that draining bats to zero can cause you not to be able to recharge.

I put a probe into Munar orbit with 4k of juice and 8 solar panels and ran it dry trying to reverse orbit. It went into a tumble on drain and even though the panels were showing good exposure and flow, I was never able to gain any charge. Ion engine was off, sas was off, and I even had time to deactivate all but one of the batteries.

I think is what happened the SAS drained my batteries and once panels got exposed they didn't charge and if I recall correctly there were reading direct exposure to light but only started to work once I started to burn in atmosphere. Also for your information guys I have turned the symmetry mode to max. value while I was placing my 1x1 panels so yes there were plenty of them....

[Anquietas314]

seaces: could you upload the .craft file for that ship? It might help to diagnose the problem - whether it's something you're doing wrong or it's actually a bug in the game. You'll need to use dropbox or some other file host of your choice, but be aware that adf.ly and similar sites are specifically prohibited in the forum rules.

[xcorps]

Were you by any chance trying to transmit something, or have anything (including controls!) that might be draining the batteries?

I would be willing to be money that everything was turned off. The comms were not deployed, I checked SAS and verified that the engine was off via right click. If there had been ANY recharge with controls active, the probe would have stopped tumbling, or at least changed it's tumble axis. I also triple checked to make sure time compression was off, even going so far as to increase and then decrease it.

[seaces]

seaces: could you upload the .craft file for that ship? It might help to diagnose the problem - whether it's something you're doing wrong or it's actually a bug in the game. You'll need to use dropbox or some other file host of your choice, but be aware that adf.ly and similar sites are specifically prohibited in the forum rules.

I am afraid that I am not able to provide you with a .craft file since I have modified the vessel heavily for manned missions. I do not think that there was a flaw in my design since there were at least 8 panels supplying SAS, Science Jr., 2 Goos, and some other small sensors there was no transmission at any time. Only that thing that was ON all the time was SAS on trip towards Minimus and back but on this way to Kerbin for some reason the panels did not charge the battery of 1000 units not even when I came near Kerbin and directly exposed to Sun. Only after I started to burn the panels provided MASSIVE amount of charge and that kind of charge was expected out of those 8 panels.