DGIII alpha release available part 2 (closed)

[Wilko]

Sorry if I seem vigilant about the whole EPU thing, but I think it would make a great addition
(albeit one that isn't really necessary).

http://atlas.walagata.com/w/wilko/apuepu.jpg

The link shows the current APU power panel, and beside it the 'new' power panel, fitted for use
with an EPU. It wouldn't take much of all to add another option on the bus selector, so the typical
EPU power up procedure would be:

- Select EPU start bus voltage
- Select EPU on bus selector

Then select the individual systems, and your ship is powered with EPU Note that it has nothing
to do with the generators or the APU, its like the emergency battery, it doesn't rely on a
generator. Anyway, I have too much time on my hands :P

Can anyone confirm the magnetic belts that surround the earth, are they harmful to electronics? If
so, then everything would go screwy the same way it would when there is a solar flare.
Hummm...... Just thinking for more ways to make the DGIII challenging :P

[DanSteph]

mhhhh not that bad I must admit...

I'll have a look, not soon, but I will. (-->"to look" list)

Dan

[Christopher Tarana]

MattNW wrote:
>I'm pretty sure Dan's going to keep the HUD editable. That's one of the biggest, and most useful
>additions in this version (next to the hover AP). I use a different HUD mode for each stage of
>flight. Mode 1 is "Surface Flight", Mode 2 is "Orbital" and I haven't found a use for Modes 3-5 yet
>but I probably will in time.

  I set my second page to say "Good Morning" to me when I select it.  If Dan can implement the
MPH or KPH I'll set page 3 to something like your surface flight page.  I'd like to see what kind
of docking data is available too.  I finally managed to take off without splatting my crew on the
back wall.  (I'm 38, so the G-effect is more pronounced. My crew is like aged!)

    Christopher

[Christopher Tarana]

>(Chris, no worry mode 5 will still be editable and the spec will be in the check list
>as well as in the printable doc)
>
>Dan

 Thanks, Dan!  I'm downloading the new version currently.  :

 
       Christopher

[ENS2018]

Hey Dan,

Great job on the DGIII, I've been doing my best to put it through it's paces and stretch it's wings
since you've been releasing these alpha releases.  

I just found a problem I don't ^think^ has been reported yet.  I just did a few quick searches and
didn't see it, so if it has, my apologies.

Anyway, on to the problem, I was just casually preparing for a launch from KCS in DGIII and
noticed a problem in the "Flight Computer Operation" checklist.  If you scroll down you see all the
pro200spec* programs - for hldalt it says pro200spec6; for hover manual it says pro200spec7;
and for auto hover it says pro200spec6  (see the problem?).

The auto hover is really pro200spec8.  The checklist is a pretty minor bug, but I just wanted to
make sure you knew about it - minor bug means simple fix, right?

That's it for now, thanks for all your hard work, Dan.


Now, back to the flying thing,
~Tony

[Christopher Tarana]

 Hmm, maybe gallevanting around the cosmos is a game for the young?  I just updated to the
new DG III alpha, and loaded last night's quicksave of my ISS intercept.  When I use 10x time
accel. I get a "G limit exceeded" warning.  Did I miss a step or is this a known issue?  

  Thanks

        Christopher

[MattNW]

Christopher Tarana wrote:

>
>  Hmm, maybe gallevanting around the cosmos is a game for the
> young?  I just updated to the
> new DG III alpha, and loaded last night's quicksave of my ISS
> intercept.  When I use 10x time
> accel. I get a "G limit exceeded" warning.  Did I miss a step
> or is this a known issue?  
>
>   Thanks
>
>         Christopher



That appeared in the previous DG II. I haven't experienced it in this release yet. I hoped Dan had
finally killed that Excess G bug. It's a random thing that pops up under some circumstances.




> ENS2018  wrote:
>
>
>The auto hover is really pro200spec8. The checklist is a pretty minor bug, but I just wanted to
>make sure you knew about it - minor bug means simple fix, right?


Real simple fix, a "Do it yourselfer" Just go to (your Orbiter directory) \Sound\deltagliderII

You'll find a notepad document "check_list". Open that up and change the 6 to an 8 for this line:

@white: pro200spec 6 hover auto

To:
@white: pro200spec 8 hover auto


You can even add your own items to the "Check List". I use an edited version for docking that
leaves DG III powered up with minimum systems when docked.

[Leemon]

Hi Dan --

One note, it should be "feet" and "ft.", not "feets" and "fts".

Thanks for the continued updates.  

Lee

[Leemon]

Another "anomaly" --  :-)

Here is the situation:
- Landed at KSC.  I opened the inner and outer doors and the nose cone and switched to an
external view
- I exited and restarted Orbiter and everything was as expected.  Everything maintained its state,
with the exception of the inner door -- it closed as it always has (see my note below).
---------- The problem ----------
- I opened the cockpit, switched to the external view again, and then exited from Orbiter
- When I launched orbiter, the cockpit was closed and the outer door and nose cone began to
close immediately on their own.  So, apparently leaving the cockpit open switches the state of the
doors and nose cone.

I hope this helps you to track down what's going on...

Opinion time... :-) I think it would be best if ALL of the doors maintained their state when you exit
and restart orbiter.  When I leave Orbiter while docked to the ISS with the doors open, using the
ISS' oxygen supply, I always have to reopen the inner door the next time I launch Orbiter.  The
situation starts with the DGIII pressurized and ready for undocking with the inner door closed.

Lee

[Christopher Tarana]

>"Opinion time... :-) I think it would be best if ALL of the doors maintained their state when you
>exit and restart orbiter. When I leave Orbiter while docked to the ISS with the doors open, using
>the ISS' oxygen supply, I always have to reopen the inner door the next time I launch Orbiter. ?
>The situation starts with the DGIII pressurized and ready for undocking with the inner door
>closed.
>
>Lee"

  Gosh!  There used to be a time when someone would gripe if a station didn't clean the windshield,
and check all the fluids (topping off those needed!).   Now that some nice ISS crew
person cycles your hatches and diverts some precious air to your airlock, you want them
tracked down and fired?     Maybe by the beta release, Dan can come up with billing
terms for Delta Glider consumables?

  MattNW - thanks for the warning re: the Excess G bug.  I'll lower the crew ages a little and
see if that helps too.  

   Christopher (whose is old enough to remember the Milkman, S&H Green Stamps, and
Garbagemen who used to take the barrels from the back of the house, to the truck and
back - while smiling!) Tarana

[MattNW]

Christopher Tarana wrote:

>   MattNW - thanks for the warning re: the Excess G bug.  I'll
> lower the crew ages a little and
> see if that helps too.  
>
>    Christopher (whose is old enough to remember the Milkman,
> S&H Green Stamps, and
> Garbagemen who used to take the barrels from the back of the
> house, to the truck and
> back - while smiling!) Tarana


Not sure that'll help much. That bug often gives you extremely high Gs. I've seen it produce
something like 10,000 Gs or higher. Now if you just want a younger crew, I often have a couple I
can send your way. Don't take up much room but if you are going very far you'll have to take along
a couple Saturn Vs loads of food.

Milkman: Never had one out here but there used to be a guy up the road who'd sell you a gallon
or so from his holding tank if the truck hadn't gotten there first to pick it up. Used to help a friend
who's dad had a dairy farm where I learned how to milk by hand because they had one cow who
just wouldn't stand still for the machine.

Garbage Man: Had that when we lived in town but I was really young then so I don't remember
much. Once we moved we had to take care of our own garbage. Either bury it or take it in to town.
Still have to do that today.

Green Stamps: Yep, remember those well. Saved for almost six months to get a tent for a planned
Scouting overnight.

[spets]

Suggestion time again!

I've been thinking about the radiator function, and how you say it will lower the power usage.

well the problem here is that there is no penalty for using power! it's an unexhaustable source,
unless something breaks down and you need the emergency battery.

I suggest some of the following to help moderate power usage:
If a lot of power usage occurs, then perhaps fuel could be consumed at a quicker rate to
compensate. one would assume the fuel cells do not have infinite current and fuel, so some of the
onboard propellant could be used to feed the load. of course this means less fuel for the mission.
If this is not done, then the fuel cell kisses your butt goodbye, and you are stuck on emergency
power (might also bring further use to the electrical systems display).

Alternatly, and this ties into the radiator concept; lots of power usage means lots of heat. if the
external radiator is not deployed, that means that at a low threshold the cooling fans systems
have to work harder to keep the inside cool, which results in a higher consumption rate of oxygen
and nitrogen. If the external radiator IS deployed, then the threshold at which this consumption
occurs should be higher, since it is able to carry away more heat more rapidly.

Just an idea to add some "use" to the external radiator perhaps.

So to sum it up, if you use up lots of electricity above "normal", you're gonna suck down fuel or
oxygen reserves. using the external radiator would slow down or stop this excess consumption. it
depends how you really want to work it off course. During atmospheric flight, opening of the air
intake could allow cooling to process through the intakes, which means no external radiator
required! and there would be a slow build up period as well to account for doing the re-entry, etc.


----

Continuing my thinking on re-entry; perhaps a more riskier re-entry approach could be made (ie,
higher slope and higher temperture) if the fuel onboard the DGIII was used to cool down the skin
of the spaceship. the pilot could flip a switch, and fuel would circulate through the skin panels. (or
perhaps the oxygen?). as it is vaporized, it is vented out of the air ducts. this could allow slightly
higher re-entry speeds, at least on earth (where you can re-fuel again!).

[Wilko]

You're right, the fuel cells do not have unlimited power, but that is what the APU is for, its a
generator that after an initial startup with some other power source can keep going on for years,
decades if is has been manufactured well. Basically there are no fuel cells, just the power from the
APU until it decides to quit, then all you have is the emergency battery.

The second idea is probably a lot more realistic and would be a good reason to deploy the radiator
while in orbit.

I also like the cooling idea, because... well... I suck at re-entries :D

Maybe if Dan ever implements the engines heating up and potentially overheating, the radiator
could also be used to cool the engines before and after burns, and if it was not used you would
risk losing the engines all together.

[Christopher Tarana]

>Not sure that'll help much. That bug often gives you extremely high Gs. I've seen it produce
>something like 10,000 Gs or higher. Now if you just want a younger crew, I often have a couple I
>can send your way. Don't take up much room but if you are going very far you'll have to take
>along a couple Saturn Vs loads of food.
  I've got an Apollo crew of my own, I know what you mean about the Saturn V loads of food!

>or so from his holding tank if the truck hadn't gotten there first to pick it up. Used to help a friend
>who's dad had a dairy farm where I learned how to milk by hand because they had one cow who
>just wouldn't stand still for the machine.
  Smart cow, she wanted to be stirred, not shaken!

>Green Stamps: Yep, remember those well. Saved for almost six months to get a tent for a
>planned Scouting overnight.
  My Grandmother would go ape over the new catalogs when they came out.  She still had a stack
of them in the house when she passed away.  

    Christopher

[spets]

Wilko,

I always thought APU's had to burn SOMETHING in order to make it's power. can't have 100%
efficiency or perputual motion machine. but if it's that efficient (or it's that far into the future ) or
I'm just ignorant as to how APU's work.

[DanSteph]

DAMNED !!!!


Just edited during two hours the main Engine wav, POINT BY POINT
Due to distortion when I first created this wav month ago ther was some flat
part on it (litle earable click)  so I tracked them down one by one zoomed
to the max and moved the litle sample point by hand to give a curve instead of a flat....
(duration of one curve must be 0.0002 second)
Nice !  after hours I got a sample looped without any click so I
Clicked on "save as" and .........

DOOMED !!!!   program just exited without saving

I love my old cooledit but sometime it do some strange things...
So you will still have small click for the next version.....


About G excess, this is an old bug but that come from Orbiter (it sometime seem to "jump"
while I test the delta position to get the acceleration a jump give me high G)
I have already a damper but I have now an idea I must try. (not allowing more than 1 G
or less difference beetween each frame)
Anyway this bug is difficult to track for me because I never had it. Just some people report
it from time to time.

Inner door I'll look, this code is dated from my first modif of the stock DG where there was only
one button and it suck... complicated with at least 5 value just for one door....


Spets:
My idea about radiator is that using too much power during a long time
would enhance you chance to fail the APU, so deploying the radiator will become
a "must do or die"  Your idea are nice but I might (or not) leave this as it is now.
A fuel for the APU mean one more system to manage, more code to run each frame,
more failure test etc etc....  

Dave told me "fts" because there is more than one feet.... fts or ft ?

Well I'll try again the wav


Dan

[MattNW]

spets wrote:

> Wilko,
>
> I always thought APU's had to burn SOMETHING in order to make
> it's power. can't have 100%
> efficiency or perputual motion machine. but if it's that
> efficient (or it's that far into the future ) or
> I'm just ignorant as to how APU's work.


I was wondering the same thing and found this:

http://science.ksc.nasa.gov/shuttle/technology/sts-newsref/stsref-toc.html#sts-apu


That might give Dan some ideas for the DG III or maybe later versions.

From reading a little bit I noticed that actually the DG III is a little backward or at least reversed
from the Shuttle. On the Shuttle long term electrical power is provided by a fuel cell using
hydrogen and oxygen to directly generate electricity. The hydrazine powered APUs are only used
during ascent and descent for a relatively short time and provide pressure for hydraulic systems.

Fuel Cell:

>Each of the three fuel cell power plants is reusable and restartable. The three fuel cells operate
>as independent electrical power sources, each supplying its own isolated, simultaneously
>operating 28-volt dc bus. The fuel cell consists of a power section, where the chemical reaction
>occurs, and an accessory section that controls and monitors the power section's performance.
>The power section, where hydrogen and oxygen are transformed into electrical power, water
>and heat, consists of 96 cells contained in three substacks. Manifolds run the length of these
>substacks and distribute hydrogen, oxygen and coolant to the cells. The cells contain electrolyte
>consisting of potassium hydroxide and water, an oxygen electrode (cathode) and a hydrogen
>electrode (anode).

>The three fuel cell power plants, through a chemical reaction, generate all of the 28-volt direct-
>current electrical power for the vehicle from launch through landing rollout. Before launch,
>electrical power is provided by ground power supplies and the onboard fuel cell power plants
>until T minus three minutes and 30 seconds. The three fuel cell power plants are individually
>coupled to the reactant (hydrogen and oxygen) distribution subsystem, the heat rejection
>subsystem, the potable water storage subsystem and the EPDC subsystem. The fuel cell power
>plants generate heat and water as by-products of electrical power generation. The excess heat
>is directed to fuel cell heat exchangers, where the excess heat is rejected to Freon coolant loops.
>The water is directed to the potable water storage subsystem.


Hydrazine APU:

>The auxiliary power unit is a hydrazine-fueled, turbine- driven power unit that generates
>mechanical shaft power to drive a hydraulic pump that produces pressure for the orbiter's
>hydraulic system. There are three separate APUs, three hydraulic pumps and three hydraulic
>systems.

>Each auxiliary power unit and its fuel system are located in the aft fuselage of the orbiter. They
>are identical but independent systems that are not interconnected. Each APU fuel system
>supplies storable liquid hydrazine fuel to its respective fuel pump, gas generator valve module
>and gas generator, which decomposes the fuel through catalytic action. The resultant hot gas
>drives a two-stage turbine. The turbine exhaust flow returns over the exterior of the gas
>generator, cooling it, and is then directed overboard through an exhaust duct at the upper
>portion of the aft fuselage near the vertical stabilizer. The turbine assembly provides mechanical
>power through a shaft to drive reduction gears in the gearbox.


>The life of the auxiliary power units used to date is limited. Refurbishment of each was required
>after 20 hours of operation, degradation of the gas generator catalyst varied up to
>approximately 40 hours of operation, and operation of the gas generator valve module also
>varied up to approximately 30 hours of operation. The remaining parts were qualified for 40
>hours of operation.

They also use a lot of fuel:

>when the APUs run continuously for approximately 120 minutes. Under operating load conditions,
>an auxiliary power unit consumes approximately 3 pounds of fuel per hour.

[Wilko]

... My bad :d lol

[Wilko]

That's very interesting information BTW, good read

[Christopher Tarana]

Dansteph Wrote:

Dave told me "fts" because there is more than one feet.... fts or ft ?

Dan

 In English 12 inches is a Foot, abbreviated as ft.  More than 1 foot is called feet and is
abbreviated ft.  We use the context to tell the difference.  1 ft is one foot, 25 ft is 25
feet.  I hope that helps.  

    Christopher

[spets]

Re-entry seems to have issues, but it could be just my flight skills. around the 40-50 km mark, the
autopilot has trouble keeping the ship oriented at the proper AoA. I am assuming it's because this
part is the boundary layer between RCS and Elevon controls, so it could be a fault of Orbiter itself.
If I lower the nose of the ship, it all of a sudden jumps down, and starts flying as an aircraft. I
have a feeling it's because at 40 AoA the plane is actually stalling through the atmosphere, but as
I bring the nose down it regains lift and starts flying again. but it makes it very tough to go back
into it's "stall" phase without shooting up 10-20 km in the process! perhaps RCS elevons need to
augment RCS controls during that phase? or add some canards? (yes I know new mesh is
required for that case).

Or I just need to learn how to do re-entry right. I was so close to making it to the cape, but no..
my bottom overheated, partly because of the weird stall/unstall fluctuations.

sigh.

[DanSteph]

About the APU I already watched how it work age ago, but as I said
there must be an ending point somewhere. If I do a APU fuel
I can soon ear people asking "how about the weight of this fuel?"

We will end with realistic weight for fuel, APU and the DGIII will not be able
to take off anymore

 (btw: how is the FPS for you at the last version ??? going down ?)

You will have a nice flyby scenario for the next release (tomorrow)

Don't forget the 040124_rev2 is already out ...


Dan

[spets]

sounds simple enough to me.

APU fuel is generally part of the "common" fuel tank for aircraft. you could make the APU a small
engine in the configuration, with neglectable "horsepower" but with a certain fuel flow rate. it
could feed out of the RCS fuel tank. then as more fuel is needed due to power demands, the fuel
flow rate could be multiplied by a variable, and there you go, a simple way to make it more
realistic. and you'll have something to go to those engine exhaust vents, besides just pretty
smoke :

[Christopher Tarana]

spets wrote:

> sounds simple enough to me.
>
> APU fuel is generally part of the "common" fuel tank for
> aircraft. you could make the APU a small
> engine in the configuration, with neglectable "horsepower" but
> with a certain fuel flow rate. it  could feed out of the RCS fuel tank. then as more fuel is
> needed due to power demands, the fuel  flow rate could be multiplied by a variable, and there
>you go, a simple way to make it more  realistic. and you'll have something to go to those engine
> exhaust vents, besides just pretty smoke :

 On the B767-300ERs, the APU gets its fuel from the left wing main tank.  Lose fuel in that tank,
it's pumps or associated plumbing and you lose the APU. The APU is needed for certain
autopilot operations like auto landing (CAT III Operations).

   Christopher

[DanSteph]

Author: spets
Date:   01-25-04 03:53
sounds simple enough to me.

Thinking of it I would say quickly:

main loop, decrease of the fuel (several comsumption possible)
modification of the dg2config program to set the "apu fuel reserve"
(two years trip will not require the same amount of comsumption
otherwise you will run out of apu fuel in one week or you will not see
anything decrease if you make just a one week trip)
Save/load code modif of CFG file of dgconfig (and in orbiter)
save/load APU fuel remaining in scenario
display of the APU reserve
display of the APU comsumption
calculus to show how mainy time remain at current comsumption. display of the result.
code to rescale all the calculus if time acceleration.
warning if APU fuel low
shutdown of all the power if no fuel
avoid to restart main apu if no fuel.
eventually separated apu tank, switch to refuel it. (+50 lines)

total :  200 to 500 lines of code + testing time.

Dan