This all-electric laser wall turns off your lasers when there are no enemies around to reduce power usage. It works by using a canary turret to turn on the lasers when it sees an enemy. This is achieved by measuring the discharge rate of an accumulator. When the rate increases above a threshold, it means the canary turret is firing, which triggers a latch that turns the lasers on for a short duration. The design swaps between 2 accumulators so 1 can be charging while the other is used for detection.
Advantages
- All electric.
- Saves power from laser drain.
- Fully blueprintable - no manual wire connections.
- Fail-safe design: the lasers will turn on if the accumulators run out of charge, or if the canary turret is destroyed. Known Issues
- If you have a lot of lasers, can cause a split-second brownout once in a while when all the lasers briefly turn on after night. This appears to be because lasers have a very high power draw when filling their internal electric buffers.
- When switching between accumulators, the lasers turn on for a second or two.
- Relies on accumulators being charged - If you don't have enough power, the lasers will turn on, which might slightly exacerbate your power problems.
- This design is for small to mid-sized bases instead of megabases because the circuits will use UPS.
For a corner version, click here: https://factorioprints.com/view/-LlLNCd9MGAZUNxnGls5