Theurgist's Advanced Status Monitor (TASM)

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Theurgist
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Theurgist's Advanced Status Monitor (TASM)

Post by Theurgist »

Let me ask you some questions and tell you a story:

Ever had those moments when something in your factory isn't being produced and you have to do an inspection run all over your large sprawling base to track down what the holdup is? Or not realising crucial issues like low coal flow before it's too late? Or being boggled why no petroleum gas is being produced despite a full oil tank?

I did.

And so began my journey into making Status monitors. First there came the basics,
First Status Panel
First Status Panel
StatusPanel1.jpg (16.96 KiB) Viewed 4126 times
then after that I decided to get fancy:
Second Status Panel
Second Status Panel
StatusPanel2.jpg (278.63 KiB) Viewed 4126 times
I used the 2nd Panel for quite a while, constantly adding to and tweaking it, until I worked out how colored lights work (Yes I'm a scrub, should've googled it, or come here). I started feverishly adjusting the old panel until I realised it was time to redesign the whole thing. And this time Go Big or Go Home.


After much intense building, thinking and soooo much wiring,




I now proudly present to you:TASM its very green
Presenting... TASM!
Presenting... TASM!
TASM.jpg (263.35 KiB) Viewed 4083 times
Features:

Alerts & Audio Alerts
Power Levels & Fuel Status
Controlled Reactor Reload Cycle & Indicator
Material Belt Levels
Research Status
Drone Status & Automatic Addition
Remote Resource Status & Completion Indicator


Required Materials:

Main Components: 517 Lights, 170 Decision Combinator, 13 Arithmetic Combinator, 50 Filter Inserters, 16 Constant generators, 10 Speakers, 4 Sub stations, 1 Big pole, 34 Medium pole, 1 Roboport
Decoration: 703 Hazard concrete, 417 Concrete, 538 Bricks

There are a few more parts in the schematic for the Dwindling Coal detector example, but you don't need to use that portion and it won't go here anyway. ^^
TASM




Connecting and Understanding your TASM:
'Out of the box' your TASM will come with a set of 4 constant generators which are providing it full signals and making sure ALL of the alarms don't instant go off. You can use these to assist you in-game with connecting up the myriad of sensors and they are also handy for when the system is in use to silence alarms while you go fix stuff, or even disable them altogether.

Connecting TASM:
You will need to run a Red and Green wire network around your base, and connect all the sensors to the TASM; you can safely connect both color wires to the sub stations.
When I say connect a sensor I just mean to connect the relevant colored wire to that object and connect that to your signal network.

If you have an existing network I'd recommend not just using that one unless none of the signals conflict with the ones you can see on your TASMs network. If there are duplicate signals, like resource readings they will stack and cause the meter to be inaccurate.

I had to install this system into our multiplayer game recently and it became far easier to track where I was at when I started Zeroing signals I'd already connected in the placeholder signal combinators.

TASM Overview
TASM Overview
TASMBreakdown.jpg (356.35 KiB) Viewed 4083 times
Audio Alerts:

Low & Critical Power:
To Enable: Connect a Red wire to a single Accumulator, output a Black signal (You should read 100 if your power is full, it is a % fill)
Behaviour: At less than 45% power it will starts with a single ping alarm, when power drops further the pitch alarm will start (I set this up by accident, but it amused me so much I decided to keep it lol), this will drop in pitch until power is REALLY low, then the Siren will kick in. You know things are bad when everything goes silent. This setup doesn't inspire panic as much as my original alarm system, but it's far more pleasant to experience. ^

Low Coal & Coal Dwindling:
To Enable: Set up the Dwindling Coal detector included in the schematic between your coal arrival your Steam generator setup, then connect the Chest using Green wire.
Behavior: If less than 2k the Dwindling Coal Silent Alert will start, If it detects less than 1.2k coal the alarm bell will ring. It's quite persistent so if this does go off remember you can stick some of your backup coal in the detector chest to shut it up while you go deal with the coal issue.

Low Uranium-235:
To Enable: Connect a Red wire to your Uranium-235 stockpile chest
Behavior: If less than 100 a Silent Alert will start, at 36 the pitch alarm will start, this will drop in tone as your last reserves disappear, or it drives you mad and you put some emergency 235 into that chest or re-enable the placeholder signal ^^

Low Fuel Rods:
To Enable: Connect a Red wire to your Uranium Fuel Rod stockpile chest.
Behaviour: Running out of fuel for your Reactor is pretty serious, so this one is a straight up Alarm at less than 80

Satellite Deployment Success:
To Enable: Have a Active or Passive Provider off your Silo, connect a Green wire
Behavior: Each time any white research enters that chest it will trigger a nice 'Alarm'




Levels:

Power:
To Enable: You did enable the above Power alerts right? Then this is set up.
Meter Range: 0-100
Behaviour: Above 80% meter is Green, from 40-79 it is White, 25-39 is Yellow, 10-24 is Red, and below is Pink

Steam Generation Active:
To Enable: The meter is enabled by plugging the power signal (Black) in, but the auto-reload requires you to have the Inserters putting coal into your Steam generators boilers to be wired up with Red and set to be enabled at Black <= 80, 60, 40 and 20%.
(I did around 30% of my total boiler inserters to 80, about 20 for 60 and 40, and the rest at 20%. My reasoning was I want a decent boost in power to start with, then if it's still not enough add in more, and if it's still dropping when at 20% then have a last ditch effort to not lose power and get that bar filling again.)
Meter Range: 1-4
Behaviour: When the power drops below 80, 60, 40 and 20% it will add a light and slowly move from Yellow to Pink.

Reactor Steam & Water:
To Enable: Place a Red sensor on 16 of your Reactor Steam storage tanks, and 4 of the Reactor Water storage tanks.
Meter Range: Water: 0-120k, Steam: 0-550k
Behaviour: When full they will be Green, and will change to yellow as they get lower. The Steam being below the Steam Threshold will trigger the Reactor Reload Cycle.

Research Belt Fullness:
To Enable: This one can be tricky; the amount of sensors depends on if it's a shared belt (2 research types on 1 belt). I found the best way was to calibrate this bit when your research is full. Connect Red sensors on the double filled belt leading into the carousel, and then 2 more on the carousel itself, preferrably opposite ends.
Meter Range: 0-21
Behavior: At 0 there will be no lights, between 1-6 will be Yellow, White from 7-19 and Green when full.

Space Research:
To Enable: Connect Red sensor to Space research stockpile (Note: Not the arrival chest next to your silo, the one where you move them to after they arrive)
Meter Range: 0-6000
Behavior: Bar will fill as you get more research in your stockpile. If there is more than 800 Space research in your stockpile the Green ready light will turn on. You can adjust this fairly easily by tracing the green wire connected to the Ready lights to the nearby combinator.

Robot Availability:
To Enable: Automatically Enabled
Meter Range: 0-100
Behavior: Green above 41%, Yellow from 25-40, Red below 25. Triggers Addition of more bots at Bot Threshold

Piercing Ammo Stockpile:
To Enable: Red sensor on Ammo stockpile chest
Meter Range: 0-1.2k
Behavior: Bar will change to reflect material levels, no color changes as it goes, but if you have 0 a Dark Blue light will activate.

Uranium 235 & 238 Stockpile:
To Enable: Red sensor on Uranium stockpile chests
Meter Range: 235: 2k, 238: 4.8k
Behavior: Bar will change to reflect material levels, no color changes as it goes, but if you have 0 a Dark Blue light will activate.

Material Belt Fullness: (Coal, Stone, Iron Ore, Copper Ore, Uranium Ore, Sulphur, Solid Fuel, Iron, Copper, Steel, Plastic, Bricks, Explosives, Green, Red & Blue Circuits)
To Enable: 1-4 Red sensor(s) on relevant belts, ideally right after it exits production, train stations, or enters smelting. You'll be doing this step full in-game using the placeholder constant generator as a guide; 7 = 1 sensor, 14 is 2, and logically 28 is 4
Meter Range: 7-28
Behavior: Bar will change to reflect material levels, no color changes as it goes, but if you have 0 a Dark Blue light will activate.

Liquid Tank Fullness: (Oil, Hv Oil, Lt Oil, Gas, Sulphuric Acid & Lubricant)
To Enable: Red sensor on 1 liquid storage tank
Meter Range: 0-24k
Behavior: Bar will reflect fill levels, Blue light will activate if empty





Indicators & Auto Systems:

Reactor Reload & Reload Cycle:
To Enable: If you have already connected your Reactor Steam tanks then you're done. If not, use Red wire to detect 16 Steam storage tanks. On your Reactor use basic Inserters for Fuel cells, restricted to a stack size of 1, set to be active if Red=1 and connect a Red wire.
Behavior: At less than 150k steam a timer will start that sends a Red pulse every 200s. This is the time it takes a reactor to burn a fuel cell, limiting wastage. It's not perfect as the reload cycle timer is always running, so sometimes you can get one put in early, but overall I'd say it works well enough.

Remote Mine Completion:
A: Stone, B: Coal, C: Copper, D: Iron, E: Uranium, F: Oil
To Enable: Run Red cable out to your Mines, then
A-D: place sensors on 4 belts
E: 1 Belt
F: 1 Storage Tank
Then take that output into an Arithmetic combinator, set to Resource + 0, Output Letter. This is a passthrough that will send the resource amount as a letter.
Behavior: When all belts at the mine are full the bars will be full and green. As the amount lessens the bars will lower and go yellow, and when there is nothing the Blue light will activate.
Remote Mine Sensor setup
Remote Mine Sensor setup
TASMRemoteMineSensor.jpg (32.74 KiB) Viewed 4083 times

Robot Increase
To Enable: Place requester chests in the spaces provided above the roboport and request the type of robot as marked on the filter inserters
Behavior: If available bot % drops below the variable threshold (Default approx 40%) more bots will be inserted into the roboport and the Pink Indicator light will turn on.

Uranium Processing
To Enable: Place a Green sensor on a place in your Uranium processing where the basic processing & Kovarex Enrichment Process outputs pass; I have my processing so this is the same place, but if you can't use a single sensor it is fine to use 2 to cover both resource outputs.
Behavior: Each time 238 or 238 passes it will pulse the center production lights.

Research Fully Produced
To Enable: Place a Green sensor directly after your Research production (All except white)
Behavior: When research is backed up all along the belt up to here it is basically finished producing, and will turn on the production complete light. If all research has completed the lights will go Green.

Sattelite Launch Success
To Enable: If you connected the Audio alert this is already connected.
Behavior: I had some fun with this. A White light will race up each side of the panel and 'into' the Space research indicator.



Adjustable Variables:
You'll need this. Took me a while to find them all and I made the poxy thing lol
You'll need this. Took me a while to find them all and I made the poxy thing lol
TASMSettingsLocations.jpg (159.96 KiB) Viewed 4083 times
Drone Addition Threshold:
V: 0-11: 0 Should mean it never adds bots, and 11 means it never stops. It is currently set to 4
(For those curious people; M is the number used to tell it how many segments (Lights) to try to fill/divide by, and the XYZT are default Roboport variables)

Reactor Reload Threshold:
X: Represents the Steam reload point, when your Reactor steam gets below this figure the controlled reload will begin, and when it goes above this again it will stop. Currently set to 150k

Resource Level Bar Colors
Just change the colors. There are 3 to adjust, the Bottom row, the 2 Rows above that, then the top 3.


AAnd that's it! You should now have a functioning Status panel of excess. And Glory. And lots of lights!



Fun facts:
Approximately 1/2 to 2/3 of the combinators used were purely for color and the Satellite launch indicator.
Wiring this kind of thing will make you go cross-eyed and a bit crazy. But thank goodness for the connection view on each object ^^



I recommend building your Silo directly below TASM: It's awful to try to walk through the bottom combinators anyway so you might as well, plus when your Rockets auto-launch chances are you're looking at the panel and will get to see it zoom past. ^^

Could anyone trying this out let me know of any issues, when I was installing the last features I had to move the bottom section of combinators down and across 1 and had to reconnect a bunch of wires. I *think* I got them all and everything is still working as intended.

And yes I know Sulphur isn't a raw resource, but I hadn't specifically planned to separate resources into categories, it just kinda happened. Which is why there are 3 random items on the end. hehe

RenewU
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Re: Theurgist's Advanced Status Monitor (TASM)

Post by RenewU »

Hey Theurgist! Love the design, absolutely fantastic! :D

One problem though... I can't get the refuel the nuclear clock thing to work:

To Enable: If you have already connected your Reactor Steam tanks then you're done. If not, use Red wire to detect 16 Steam storage tanks. On your Reactor use basic Inserters for Fuel cells, restricted to a stack size of 1, set to be active if Red=1 and connect a Red wire.

I follow the instructions best I can, but no matter how hard I investigate (I'll not pretend to understand your advanced circuits) I never seem to get a red signal, triggering the arms to refuel. Also, by artificially creating a red pulse I can get the arms to move as intended but only if they are set to the opposite of the instructions, namely Red != 1. I seem to be misunderstanding something and any help would be greatly appreciated!

Regards, RenewU

Theurgist
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Re: Theurgist's Advanced Status Monitor (TASM)

Post by Theurgist »

By rights when it detects less than the required amount of steam in those tanks it should start sending a Red pulse every 2 minutes on the Red wire. If the pulse timer is counting up when the activation cycle kicks in it will only trigger a reload when the timer resets. When your steam tanks are full you can verify you're monitoring the expected amount (550k).

Activating on Red !=1 is right if it hasn't got a red signal coming in.

A good way to troubleshoot circuits is to hover over connecting power poles to see what signals are active.

When the reload is active the Reactor Refuelling lights will go on, you can verify there is a red pulse being sent by those lights changing color for a moment as the inserters get triggered.

You can also temporarily adjust the reload cycle speed to make troubleshooting easier by changing the timers constant combinators 12k Uranium figure to something smaller, like 10. Don't forget to change it back afterwards or the inserters will stick all of the fuel rods in lol. You can track down the timers by looking for the combinators that are constantly flashing

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