[closed]Electric system on DG III or IV

[FetDaniel]

boltex wrote:

p.s. please keep the discussion to the point of electrical components of the dg4, thank you
meaning = please abstrain from commenting that dan could implement a thousand other futile things, if you catch
what i mean! (ashtrays, minibar, cd-player, wipers, etc...) hehe

Hey hey! We already have a mp3player in orbitersound! ^^ Quality addons indeed. period. ;D

[boltex]

haha! youre right! that being said: maybe there would be some place in the lower panel for an ashtray....

[sunshine135]

boltex wrote:

p.s. please keep the discussion to the point of electrical components of the dg4, thank you
meaning = please abstrain from commenting that dan could implement a thousand other futile things, if you catch
what i mean! (ashtrays, minibar, cd-player, wipers, etc...) hehe

Can I include a request for electric flush toilet? Now you would certainly need that if you had the mini-bar add-on pack and
the additional 30,000 lines of Dan's code.

BTW Dan, I feel your pain. I once did a graphics program in GW Basic back about 18 years ago. It took 60,000 lines just to
make a map draw itself and make a stupid city flash and the name appear.

I apologize. I can't help myself tonight...

[Cairan]

I think we all agree that

1) Generators and APU should use up some resources when ON, hence the need to actually switch them off or on at given points...

2) Consumption should be small enough not to preclude flights to outer planets, yet be meaningful...

Putting some technical blabing in there, we all can assume that the DG is a nuclear beast... Meaning it's power is probably
some sort of fission or fusion based device... The one technology which I can put in there that would fit our purposes would
be a pebble bed fission reactor as the APU...

Now the details of how to connect all the dots:

Starting the APU actually starts the onboard reactor... We see the messages flash about hydrazine and nitrogen... Actually,
pebble bed reactors use helium in the primary circuit, and can either directly drive a turbine or exchange heat to another
fluid, such as air/nitrogen.

Correction #1 needed: Change text from "hydrazine" to "helium" in the text displayed during APU start-up...

This heated nitrogen in turn would drive either one or two generators, selected by the clicking of the GEN1/GEN2 buttons.
Given the need to keep a pebble bed fission reactor cooled to function, if not it throttles itself down thermodynamically at
a safe, higher, idle temperature, you either dump the heated nitrogen overboard if the radiator is not deployed or if the
load is too important.

Correction #2 needed: Code that ... Check if a N2 tank is set to AUTO/ON in the consumables. Check if N2 is available in the
tank. Remove a tiny bit of N2 from the tank, dependant on the electrical load and if the radiator is deployed or not. If
radiator deployed, don't dump any N2 if load is below 20 A, if not, or if load is over 20 A (the minimum to keep the crew
alive), dump some amount for every excess Amp used every second, just like O2 consumption by the crew...

Consumption should be set so that keeping the DG running at full electrical power, everything turned on, with the radiator
stowed, would result in running out of N2 in 15 days, just like a five-person crew would use up all the O2 at default settings.

There... It's Newbie-proof! :D They'd die out of suffocation before running out of coolant and triping the generators off...
Which brings an optional correction...

Correction #3 needed: Loss of N2 supply trips generators offline. Wrong swtich flipped or empty tanks means no more
GEN1/GEN2, which means you need to fire up the fuel cell. There, finally, we have generator failure modes!

I don't think it can get simpler than that, either from a coding standpoint, a newbie or a "clicker"

Just my 2 cents to try and make everyone happier with the upcoming DG! I'd be happy to write the technobabble about it...

Quick recap of the mods:

#1: Change "hydrazine" to "helium" in APU start text messages...
#2: Use N2 at a rate of 5 / 12960000 for every excess Amp above 20 A if radiator deployed, above 0 A if not. That's 15 days
at load of 50 A.
#3: No N2 = No GEN1 / GEN2.

Oh and by the way, just to make sure I'm not misunderstood: Those are not demands, merely a detailed suggestion of how it might be possible to do it. Take it if you want but if you don't, no problems!



Post Edited ( 01-07-07 07:49 )

[boltex]

i think everybody has different ideas about gen1 and gen 2 buttons on the top panel...
something stands out as a common denominator: most people feel like they should use up something if they're "on"

i think it would be wise to let it as-it-is and let Dan think about it for a couple months! so that he has a reason to
make a DG5 ! yeaaay!  

[Cairan]

Yeah I agree with the fact that this is not a pressing matter... We can live very well with the DG as-is, but still, those
blinking lights are beaconing temptations to push some buttons... :P

But seriously, I'm starting to think about putting together some sort of SDK on this subject to help add-on developpers to
put those systems in there without having to start from scratch everytime...

It might actually be useful also for the STS fleet...

[skookum]

I like the DG IV as is. But here's my two cents.

Electrical systems consist of busses. The bus draws power from electrical sources (generator, APU, solar cells, fuel cells,
etc). Ship systems draw power from the bus (busses). Sources can pruduce a limited amout of power over a limited period of
time. Some systems would suck more power than others. As long as consumption (measured in AMP hours) does not exceed
production, everything is groovy.

During coasting flight, the only systems that should be drawing power are comms, life support and lighting, and guidance
updates. I bet solar panels or fuel cells could take this kind of load for most situations. Orientetion might be critical for
solar cells though.

Launch and re-entry would of course require a more hefty power supply. Hence the high output (but short duration) APUs.

An electrical failure should not be life threatening though, especially in LEO. All terrestial aircraft today can lose the
main generators and land safely (within an hour or so). The emergency bus should be able to power necessary systems for at
least as long as the time from deorbit burn to touchdown. Manual flight control might be required, but hey, that's what
pilots are for.

If this were feasible for the DG IV series, then I think the upper panel would need to be expanded for sure. This would be
great for STS flights though. Viduals and switches are already there. It's the back end that will require a monumental effort
to develop.

[Confabulous]

I do think the elec system as it stands has one major good point - the emergency fuel cell. Very good idea, bring lots of
interesting scenarios (launch to orbit to docking with just the fuel cell, max conservation, etc).

[jer11]

sunshine135 wrote:

DanSteph wrote:

Already tried the "donate" button for DGII and OrbiterSound...earned US$ 17.00 in 8 month, bouton
removed

Dan

That was before I got involved in Orbiter. What a shame. Who do I write the check out to and where do I send it?

On a lighter note, I don't worry about running out of electricity. I figured that the generators utilized some form of
fission to provide power. What I want to know is, how does a 5-year supply of food fit into the Glider anyway?
Hmmm?

I'll even buy off on the drinking water being a byproduct of the generator process, but no way you are telling me that
5
years of food can fit in the Glider. I don't care how "freeze-dried" it is.

Besides that... Where is the bathroom and the shower? What's the deal you never have to go?

"Capt. John Doe is dead! He held his bladder too long!" 8o

How can Mr. Doe die of bladder explostion? is that happen on real life?

[Confabulous]

Urine and faecal matter was dumped overboard on the Shuttle and Apollo, that still would work, so no problem with bladder
explosion. It's not really practical to simulate those systems!

[jer11]

sunshine135 wrote:

boltex wrote:

p.s. please keep the discussion to the point of electrical components of the dg4, thank you
meaning = please abstrain from commenting that dan could implement a thousand other futile things, if you catch
what i mean! (ashtrays, minibar, cd-player, wipers, etc...) hehe

Can I include a request for electric flush toilet? Now you would certainly need that if you had the mini-bar add-on pack
and
the additional 30,000 lines of Dan's code.

BTW Dan, I feel your pain. I once did a graphics program in GW Basic back about 18 years ago. It took 60,000 lines
just to
make a map draw itself and make a (bleep) city flash and the name appear.

I apologize. I can't help myself tonight...

100,000 lines to make a solar system.... back in 1989, when dan is bit pass teen age before orbiter was relesed. ???
help me finish this

[DanSteph]

I was 24 in 1989

Dan

[n122vu]

sunshine135 wrote:
 What I want to know is, how does a 5-year supply of food fit into the Glider anyway? Hmmm?

I'll even buy off on the drinking water being a byproduct of the generator process, but no way you are telling me that
5
years of food can fit in the Glider. I don't care how "freeze-dried" it is.

Umm...can I point out just one teeny tiny thing here?  (I know you were joking with this...but I just want to make a
general point about some of the requests I see in this thread - I'm a programmer and I sympathize 100% with Dan's
dilemma).  

The title of the program is "Orbiter: A Free Space Flight Simulator," not "Orbiter: A Free Space Life
Simulator."



This is the same thing that started to torque me off about some of the add-ons for MS Flight Simulator.  Call me a
purist, but the point of the program is to simulate flight in space.  Sure, there are add-ons that replicate some of the
functionality of the Space Shuttle.  However, if you lose focus and also try to simulate other aspects of functionality or
even aspects of living, you're actually in another realm of simulation altogether.  I don't know about anyone else, but
I'm not an electrical engineer, and unlike Gary Sinise in the movie Apollo 13, who had a full-size mock up of the Apollo
craft with which to practice voltage regulation, I don't have a mock up of the DGIV in my bedroom to practice getting
the voltages just right so that the next time I fire up Orbiter my crew doesn't die halfway to Saturn.  

If you want to simulate life and death based on food supply and food consumption, get a virtual pet.  If you want to
take a trip to Mars and points beyond from your desktop, fire up Orbiter and take the DGIV for a spin.  

[Cairan]

n122vu wrote:


If you want to simulate life and death based on food supply and food consumption, get a virtual pet.  If you want to
take a trip to Mars and points beyond from your desktop, fire up Orbiter and take the DGIV for a spin.  

There's 2 opposing school of thinking:

For some, a simulator implies only the action-reaction dynamics. You bank left, airplane turns. Reduce power, need to drop
the nose to maintain speed, etc...

For others, a simulator implies dealing with plausible scenarios which require more than usual skills. Aka: pushing the
limits. That's when the idea to put temperature and G-limits comes in, as well as engine failures and such.

Landing a 747 on 2 engines has not been done often, but it has (just search for a United Airlines flight from Honolulu...)
Same with hydraulics failure, with one DHL crew managing to actually pull that airmanship feat over Baghdad in 2003... Same
goes with shuttle launches... Some are happy to make it to orbit, others want to see if they could save the day should the
Bad happen. Hence you have those nice "Random Engine Failure" tabs in Flight Simulator.

It all boils down to realism really... Can a ship the size of a DG make anything other than short duration Low Earth Orbit
trips: No. Knowning that, there is an element of suspension of disbelief. However, when you add consumables, you kind of open
the door for remarks such as the one about food supply. Which I take as a humorous, sarcastic one... Can you imagine how much
Chineese Noodles would be needed to sustain 5 healthy men and women for 5 years!!! And there is a physical limit to how many
flavours you can create with MGS! :D

I, for one, consider Orbiter to be a platform full of potential to simulate the delicate use of resources. After all, that's
what spaceflight is all about: resource management.

Be it power, fuel, oxygen, water, food, radiation, heat, weight, thrust... The extreme perils we face in space are what make
rocket science so attractive...

All that being said, Dan's making a hell of a job with this fictional ship we've come to love, and it can only be hoped that
other projects of similar graphical and operational quality appear to complement it's functions and help use it more in it's
true role: transit from the realm of atmospheric flight to the void of space, and back.

[n122vu]

Cairan wrote:

I, for one, consider Orbiter to be a platform full of potential to simulate the delicate use of resources. After all, that's
what spaceflight is all about: resource management.

Be it power, fuel, oxygen, water, food, radiation, heat, weight, thrust... The extreme perils we face in space are what
make
rocket science so attractive...

Point taken, and I'm with you on all other points.  I didn't mean to imply that simulation of resource management was
out of place.  I simply meant to point out that there are limits to what should be expected from this or any simulation
platform that runs on a PC.  I do admit that it would be more realistic to have the functionality of an actual electrical
system at your fingertips.  Heck, even submarine games/simulators take that into account.  But most, if not all of
them, are commecially-developed products, with a development team working on the different aspects.  

I agree that Dan has done a hell of a job expanding on Dr. Schweiger's concept craft, and the resulting work he has
produced is nothing short of outstanding in my book.  It's just that, as Dan has pointed out in several threads
requesting functionality, there are some things Orbiter was just not designed to do.  And Dan is only one man...

[DanSteph]

And as pointed in another thread, I cannot work all years long for free,
I must get also money to ensure my familly's life. Still across years
the DG serie as got a lot of new features... I think DGII is three or four
years old now ? (don't remember exactly ?)

Mhhh maybe four years ??: (the DeltaGliderII first of the serie was called also "G-SNDO")
so at least 29-march-2003 (I didn't do an extended search)
http://orbiter.dansteph.com/forum/index.php?topic=9717.msg155263#msg155263

Maybe five years ?
http://www.eharm.net/shop/freeware/orbiter/addons/dgii/dgii.html

Dan



Message modifié ( 09-01-2007 15:09 )

[Confabulous]

Is it just me or is the answer obvious, i.e, have someone else code the relevant systems? There's plenty of people who want
to do the work, freeing Dan up for his commercial products. The alternative is a long series of whinges culminating in this
being the last in the DG series.

[DanSteph]

Whatewer you do, even the most fabulous game in world will still have requests and whinges, and about everyone
wanting to do the work, nothing prevent them to do their "DGXXX" for what it matter, there is even alternative yet,
DG-CT and others... http://orbiter.dansteph.com/index.php?news=109

I know some peoples pressure that I release the code, but the only thing that will happen
if I do that is various alternate "DGIV" release with only some more features, (and maybe a lot of bug)
that will confuse anyone and will not add a lot.

there is only a few peoples in Orbiter that have knowldege to handle a DGIV programming,
are able to work several month or years to improve it and are enough professionnal to not
release a full bug neverending beta.

that's what is cool with Orbiter, want more ? do it yourself

Dan



Message modifié ( 09-01-2007 16:19 )

[Confabulous]

I see your point Dan, makes a lot of sense!

[sunshine135]

n122vu wrote:

Cairan wrote:

I, for one, consider Orbiter to be a platform full of potential to simulate the delicate use of resources. After all, that's
what spaceflight is all about: resource management.

Be it power, fuel, oxygen, water, food, radiation, heat, weight, thrust... The extreme perils we face in space are what
make
rocket science so attractive...

Point taken, and I'm with you on all other points.  I didn't mean to imply that simulation of resource management was
out of place.  I simply meant to point out that there are limits to what should be expected from this or any simulation
platform that runs on a PC.  I do admit that it would be more realistic to have the functionality of an actual electrical
system at your fingertips.  Heck, even submarine games/simulators take that into account.  But most, if not all of
them, are commecially-developed products, with a development team working on the different aspects.  

I agree that Dan has done a hell of a job expanding on Dr. Schweiger's concept craft, and the resulting work he has
produced is nothing short of outstanding in my book.  It's just that, as Dan has pointed out in several threads
requesting functionality, there are some things Orbiter was just not designed to do.  And Dan is only one man...

In all seriousness, I am very happy with Orbiter, Dan's Add-ons, and the beautiful add-ons that others have worked hard on.

The fact you can have some realism and some fiction is the true beauty of Orbiter. I have learned more about what is involved
in space travel than I ever could have learned by reading mountains of books. That being said, I think that Orbiter's
flexibility is its greatest attribute. I can do full shuttle and apollo missions, or I can take a delta glider to Jupiter.
Isn't it great! Best of all, the folks like Dr. Schweiger and Dan don't ask for a dime. This is the one time I must say I
have received much more than I have paid for.

It is a fine line between Beta testing/ bug correction, requesting more to an add-on than already has been put together
(which can be a good or bad thing depending on how much code must be altered), and complaining. From what I have seen, Dan is
pretty good about giving us all the benefit of the doubt.