Pedal Power Problem

[vlad_1492]

Trying to bunker up and generate my own power needs.

Single stationary vehicle, foot cranks, all three alternators, works fine but…
UPS charger drains the medium storage battery faster than pedaling fills it.
When it is empty, the power goes nowhere. Battery does not charge above 0%, UPS stays at same state of charge no matter how long you pedal.

Solution has been to drag a full-sized storage battery in place, ‘prime’ it by pedaling a half hour or so before turning on the charger and continuing to monitor state of charge. Cumbersome. Hoping to build folding solution and toss the extra alternators in the basket.

Any fix known?

[Breligar]

Just a guess, but it could be that because the UPS charger devours battery charge so readily your battery system is just instantly dying when it manages to generate a charge. Something like this:

1. Battery hits 0%, thus turning off UPS charging station
2. Battery hits 1% from pedaling, thus reactivating UPS charging station
3. UPS station begins drawing energy, dipping the battery count below 1%
4. Repeat steps 1-3 ad nauseam

[vlad_1492]

Hmm. don’t know how to look at the code, can say that describes the result but perhaps not the process.

The UPS charger stays toggled ‘on’, but when the battery is depleted the charge goes nowhere. Not to the battery or the UPS charger. If I build up a buffer charge and manually turn on/off the UPS charger it seems to work out. So long as the battery keeps a minimal charge, power is sent to the UPS charger. Pretty sure this is not working as intended.

With a battery smaller than the full sized storage one, the micromanagement is not workable.

On the plus side, it is very much do-able to recharge bionics from the charging cable port this way. With three alternators it is fairly quick too.

[Coolthulhu]

It works like this:
The charger eats 10 power. If there is less than that, it cancels charging (after consuming power). So if an alternator produces less than 10 power per turn and the battery is empty, charger will never charge.

Fix for this is already waiting for testing.

[vlad_1492]

Hero!

[vlad_1492]

Seems to be working well as of 5223.