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Never run out of power again!!! This device helps you avoid out of power situations.

- Monitors power levels.
- Takes actions automatically to prevent power outages.
- Alerts you of the need to add generation capacity before you are in trouble.
- Alerts are not annoying.
- Low tech. You can get it with Red/Green research.

How it behaves when the power drops below your minimum power level for the factory line:

- It disconnects your factory line from the power grid, so that this factory line no longer draws from it. The disconnect helps prevent a cascade collapse of the power grid and buys you time to increase your power capacity or if necessary to remove whatever caused the power drain.
- It rings an alarm - once. No annoying alarm that keeps wailing until you fix the problem.
- It displays a global message, so that you can be informed of which factory line just shut down.

The idea is that you hear the alarm, look at the message, and calmly go fix the issue... long before it becomes a serious problem.

How to use:

- The concrete is there purely as a visual aid. If you don't like it place and re-blueprint without the flooring tiles. Same for the radar and outside poles, they are there only for demonstration.
- You may place this device either as an integral part of your factory line (I do it in all of my permanent factory blueprints) or keep it separate and just run the power from it to the factory line.
- Connect your power grid to the center pole (like I did with the medium pole in the blueprint).
- Connect a copper wire from the free end of the power switch to one of your factory line's poles.
- Choose a minimum power level for your factory line and set it in the constant combinator. You should choose your own, but here are some ideas for minimum power levels: 20% = Core facilities, like your low volume production mall (so that you can get the resources to add power capacity). 30% = Smelters. 40% = Oil (and derivatives), high volume green, red, blue circuit production. 50% = High volume mall. 60% = Science production and labs. 70% = Rocket production and silo. 80% = Other things. The idea is for the least important things to shut down first and to buy you the most time possible to address the shortage.
- Edit the message in the Programmable Speaker to something meaningful to you.
- Do not connect anything in the factory line to the external power grid, all power must flow through the device.
- At least at first, use the concrete to guide you when you build near the device. Anything in the inner hazard concrete square will be powered by the external power grid. You may place factory components inside outside that inner square but avoid placing any poles in the external concrete area (to prevent connections to that center pole or main power grid).

Factorioprints page: https://factorioprints.com/view/-LOOQbz6NZoOI4hjPCtl

Thanks for sharing the design!

The part I find most difficult is not having multiple paths into the factory line. I always tell myself "leave more room!" And I always find myself running out of space and trying to squish in one more little thing and suddenly everything that was nicely isolated now has multiple power connections. Sigh...

How to ...

1. During Night Time Prioritize Accumulators
2. Activate Steam engines ONLY when Solar Power IS OFF
3. Does Accumulator OUTput information kW value or % value?

Amarula wrote: ↑Tue Oct 09, 2018 5:37 pm Thanks for sharing the design!

The part I find most difficult is not having multiple paths into the factory line. I always tell myself "leave more room!" And I always find myself running out of space and trying to squish in one more little thing and suddenly everything that was nicely isolated now has multiple power connections. Sigh...

Use Copper Wires to connect and disconnect individual power poles. Left click to pick a starting point for your connection and left click again on a different point to draw a connection. Draw over an existing connection to disconnect it (you do not get the wire back). Shift-click once to disconnect all electrical connections, or twice to disconnect red & green wires as well.

Yes you can fix the problem by removing wires, it would just be nice to have the option to mark a pole as 'do not automatically connect here, manual connections only.' Or I can learn to leave enough room

Amarula wrote: ↑Tue Aug 06, 2019 1:29 pm Yes you can fix the problem by removing wires, it would just be nice to have the option to mark a pole as 'do not automatically connect here, manual connections only.' Or I can learn to leave enough room

So true. Being able to ensure that things don't auto-connect is often one of the very few reasons I use wooden poles past the initial hour or two of playing on a new map.

I really like your idea of a configuration item for a pole to mark it as one that does not auto-connect. You should submit a suggestion in the appropriate forum.

b_d wrote: ↑Sun Aug 04, 2019 5:43 pm How to ...

1. During Night Time Prioritize Accumulators
2. Activate Steam engines ONLY when Solar Power IS OFF
3. Does Accumulator OUTput information kW value or % value?

1. According to the wiki, power comes first from solar, then steam and finally accumulators. I don't think there is any way to change that. However...
2. As far as I know, the only way to measure available power is using an accumulator, as in bulldog's design. You can't measure solar power directly. So use an accumulator to measure when the solar power stored in accumulators starts to run low, and use that to enable your steam power generation. That will stop the steam from running during the day when solar is available, AND prioritize the use of accumulator power before steam.
3. According to the wiki, accumulator charge is reported as a percentage.

I hope that is helpful for you. And thank you for the wonderful subject line, I love calling it a Contaminator instead of Combinator

Amarula wrote: ↑Tue Aug 06, 2019 1:54 pm

b_d wrote: ↑Sun Aug 04, 2019 5:43 pm How to ...

1. During Night Time Prioritize Accumulators
2. Activate Steam engines ONLY when Solar Power IS OFF
3. Does Accumulator OUTput information kW value or % value?

1. According to the wiki, power comes first from solar, then steam and finally accumulators. I don't think there is any way to change that. However...
2. As far as I know, the only way to measure available power is using an accumulator, as in bulldog's design. You can't measure solar power directly. So use an accumulator to measure when the solar power stored in accumulators starts to run low, and use that to enable your steam power generation. That will stop the steam from running during the day when solar is available, AND prioritize the use of accumulator power before steam.
3. According to the wiki, accumulator charge is reported as a percentage.

I hope that is helpful for you. And thank you for the wonderful subject line, I love calling it a Contaminator instead of Combinator

Using an accumulator like I did in this design is the most common/popular way to measure power, but... I remember a mod that gives you a "measuring power pole" that gives you a signal for each type of power-generating device. I am pretty sure that solar panel power is one of the signals.

Try to find that mod, it might give you the information/signal that you want.

And of course, as more people use that mod... it becomes more likely that the DEVs will eventually add the feature to the vanilla app.