Sunlight detector

[hanli427]

I would like to see a sunlight detector for circuit networks. Easiest might be to have a circuit network output from the solar panels, that provides its energy output as a percentage. That way you could use it to detect whether the sun is up. Perhaps better is a dedicated component, incase you think the solar panel is too large, if all you want is a detector. Either way it can't be a difficult thing to add.

The reason that I want this is so that I can control coal and nuclear plant to turn on and off at different accumulator charge depending on if it is day or night. I already base an S/R latch on accumulator charge, but I also want a sunlight condition as I don't want coal and nuclear to recharge the accumulators during the day, the solar panels can do that then. Perhaps other people can think of other uses as well.

[impetus maximus]

maybe this will work for you.

Day_Timer.png (49.83 KiB) Viewed 3651 times

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place it at night when solar is producing 0 power, and don't connect the pole to the electric network.
when the sun comes up it will start to charge the accumulator, which will trigger the 25000 count (ticks in a day) timer.
T signal at dawn will be 0ish on the timer, then around 18,000(?) when it starts to get dark. adjust your numbers as needed.
https://wiki.factorio.com/Game-day

keep this accumulator separate from your electric network, so it will keep time even in a brown/black out.

hope this helps.

[Atlas]

Maybe combinator clock would be better. Something that would read the current game time and send it to circuit network. It may have broader usage.

[hanli427]

maybe this will work for you.

Day_Timer.png

place it at night when solar is producing 0 power, and don't connect the pole to the electric network.
when the sun comes up it will start to charge the accumulator, which will trigger the 25000 count (ticks in a day) timer.
T signal at dawn will be 0ish on the timer, then around 18,000(?) when it starts to get dark. adjust your numbers as needed.
https://wiki.factorio.com/Game-day

keep this accumulator separate from your electric network, so it will keep time even in a brown/black out.

hope this helps.

Guess it could work, it would work for my purposes, but not really a sunlight detector, but rather a clock. It would have a lot more uses as well, as a clock. But for certain purposes a straight up sunlight detector would still be simpler, and a more obvious solution. And how hard would it be to put an output to the circuit network for the solar panel.