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Junction Box

Very nice mod Wolf!

I ran into a snag tho, it seems I cannot connect the solar banks directly to your junction/fuse boxes. I have to have solar banks first connected to a battery bank and then it will connect to them. Normally this wouldn't be a problem, but I've set up an "Emergency Generator" area located deep below where the solar bank is mounted. My battery bank is placed down there beside my generator so that I can quickly and easily swap connections if the battery bank drains.

I have an elaborate string of relays set up so that the extension of my wires down to the Emergency Generator is hidden and thought that your mod would very nicely clean up that waste of lost energy from putting relays all over just to keep them hidden.

I don't suppose you could create a way that the generator and the solar bank would work together to charge battery banks? Solar panels are great until it gets dark, and then I have to manually change the wires for the generator to charge the batteries if they drain. Sure would be nice if that was just an automated process - I would imagine it as Solar charges when the sun is out, but once the sun goes down and the batteries drain the generator automatically kicks in and charges until they are full again, and then shuts off. The generator and solar banks wouldn't be charging at the same time, just one or the other as the circumstances require. I figure that's not doable, but never hurts to ask :)

Edit : I should clarify that it does connect (I hear the click), but no power goes directly from solar to any of the junction boxes without having battery banks in between.

 
Very nice mod Wolf!
I ran into a snag tho, it seems I cannot connect the solar banks directly to your junction/fuse boxes. I have to have solar banks first connected to a battery bank and then it will connect to them. Normally this wouldn't be a problem, but I've set up an "Emergency Generator" area located deep below where the solar bank is mounted. My battery bank is placed down there beside my generator so that I can quickly and easily swap connections if the battery bank drains.

I have an elaborate string of relays set up so that the extension of my wires down to the Emergency Generator is hidden and thought that your mod would very nicely clean up that waste of lost energy from putting relays all over just to keep them hidden.

I don't suppose you could create a way that the generator and the solar bank would work together to charge battery banks? Solar panels are great until it gets dark, and then I have to manually change the wires for the generator to charge the batteries if they drain. Sure would be nice if that was just an automated process - I would imagine it as Solar charges when the sun is out, but once the sun goes down and the batteries drain the generator automatically kicks in and charges until they are full again, and then shuts off. The generator and solar banks wouldn't be charging at the same time, just one or the other as the circumstances require. I figure that's not doable, but never hurts to ask :)

Edit : I should clarify that it does connect (I hear the click), but no power goes directly from solar to any of the junction boxes without having battery banks in between.
Click to expand...
Glad you like the mod! :)

I'll take a look at it and see what I can come up with.

- - - Updated - - -

What I liked was to see the wires I tried but I can not
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Once you connect the wires, you unfortunately won't be able to see them.

 
--snip--I ran into a snag tho, it seems I cannot connect the solar banks directly to your junction/fuse boxes. I have to have solar banks first connected to a battery bank and then it will connect to them. Normally this wouldn't be a problem, but I've set up an "Emergency Generator" area located deep below where the solar bank is mounted. My battery bank is placed down there beside my generator so that I can quickly and easily swap connections if the battery bank drains. --snip--

Edit : I should clarify that it does connect (I hear the click), but no power goes directly from solar to any of the junction boxes without having battery banks in between.--snip--
Click to expand...
I did some testing and couldn't reproduce this. Just to make sure I'm on the same page, you had a solar bank, and connected it to the junction box, then connected it to a battery bank? And power wouldn't flow for you?

I first connected the solar bank to the junction box (I tried with the concrete block, the fuse box and the junction box), then connected the junction box to the battery bank, then connected the battery bank to a spot light.

I had also tried it connecting the solar bank to the junction box, then connecting the junction box to the spot light. I was able to get the spot light to turn on in both instances, even when I had turned the battery bank off in the first setup.

Please let me know if this is how you had it set up (or how you had wanted it setup) and you were still experiencing issues.

--snip--
I don't suppose you could create a way that the generator and the solar bank would work together to charge battery banks? Solar panels are great until it gets dark, and then I have to manually change the wires for the generator to charge the batteries if they drain. Sure would be nice if that was just an automated process - I would imagine it as Solar charges when the sun is out, but once the sun goes down and the batteries drain the generator automatically kicks in and charges until they are full again, and then shuts off. The generator and solar banks wouldn't be charging at the same time, just one or the other as the circumstances require. I figure that's not doable, but never hurts to ask :)
Click to expand...
That, unfortunately, is impossible, at least as far as my knowledge goes and being able to do something like that with a modlet. But there is a way where you can setup two battery banks to have a 'day grid' and a 'night grid' and not have to worry about charging the batteries. I know this worked in 16.4, but I haven't had a chance to test it in 17.1.

I will say that this is not my idea, I found it probably on the forums here, but failed to write down who posted it, so I'm sorry whoever posted it, I'm unable give you credit.

--

So the build:

Solar bank, with as much cells as you can buy.

It connects to the 1st timer relay, that is set to 4:00 - 19:30, connected to a 2nd timer relay that is set to 4:00 - 20:00. This little trick is required to skip the game's logic, should be easily done by one relay, but if I leave the 1st timer out, than the system doesn't powers up at nighttime, I need to start/stop the solar bank to make it work. So it's kind of workaround because of the game's logic, it just completely separates the networks.

The 2nd timer connects to the 1st battery bank which charges during daytime and connects to the 3rd timer that was set to 20:00 to 4:00. This is the "night grid", that powers up the sensors that switches the lights up in the house. This night network cuts of at 4 when the sunlight is enough to see easily and save power. Also this was connected to the 2nd battery bank that's output is the "24/7" network. During daytime it powers up the traps around the house (while the 1st is being charged by the sun), and at night the 1st battery pack charges up the 2nd.

This system fully works without any touch, of course you have to check your watt usage and get the best batteries you can. Of course you can play with the times but this is what works best for me.

So in schematic:

Solar bank --> timer relay 1 (4:00-19:30) --> timer relay 2 (4:00-20:00) --> 1st battery bank --> timer relay 3(20:00-4:00, nightpower grid) --> 2nd battery bank --> 24/7 grid.

 
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And also, just as feedback, changing where the visible wire attaches to the fusebox from a gen would look better. It just kind of floats out in front of it at the moment.
And possibly adding the red/green light from the vanilla switch to the fusebox(haven't tried the panel yet) so you can easily tell if it is on or off would be nice.

Still, loving the new options!
Click to expand...
Hey bdubyah, I looked into these, but I think they would require a new model, at least for adding a light to the fusebox or panel. That would be beyond me, unless someone with more modding experience had a trick up their sleeve.

 
So what exactly makes it so the wires are invisible? I was looking through the xmls for this so I could apply it the some stuff I'm tinkering around with, but I don't really see anything.

Surely it's something simple. Lol.

 
So what exactly makes it so the wires are invisible? I was looking through the xmls for this so I could apply it the some stuff I'm tinkering around with, but I don't really see anything.
Surely it's something simple. Lol.
Click to expand...
Someone with a lot more modding experience could answer this better, but from my understanding, is the game doesn't see those blocks as items that can have a wire attached to them. Like there's no real "This is where the wire originates" point. Not sure if I'm explaining it correctly. There's nothing in the actual xml that says "don't put a wire on this".

 
I'm making changes to adapt it to alpha 18. I'm getting damage in line with alpha 18 expected hit points, adjusting the unlock, adding "UnlockBy", adding resource multipliers due to adv engineering... @Untamed_Wolf, do you have this on the mod launcher? I want to put it there, if you don't have stuff on the mod launcher yet. I'd use "Untamed_Wolf and dcsobral" on the author tag. If you do have it on the mod launcher, I can send it back by dropbox. I was going to post a dropbox link here anyway.

 
In the end, I did quite a few changes, so I published it as a different mod (but kept attribution on author). Needless to say, but I will anyway, you are free to pick up any of the changes I did back to junction boxes.
Easy, but not updated, dropbox link: https://www.dropbox.com/s/soh00c5r54l8o7x/Dan%27s%20Electricity%20Blocks.zip?dl=0

Always up-to-date source link: https://github.com/dcsobral/7d2d/tree/master/Mods/Dan's%20Electricity%20Blocks
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Thanks for taking the time to update this, dcsobral!

I don't have anything on the mod launcher, and this mod was an update to an abandoned A16 mod, so feel free to do whatever you need to do with this. I currently don't have a lot of time to do modding, so I appreciate this.

I will update the first post with links to your mod.

 
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