Hello, I am having a bit of issue with setting up a proper gate for my Redstone Energy Cell. I set it up to emit redstone signal when it has space for energy, so it turns on engines when needed. However, I am having a constant drain because of Thermionic Fabricator, Rolling Machine and AE system so my engines run all the time and waste a lot of lava. How can I solve this? Thanks in advance.
Help with BC gates
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I have a similar setup. I use a stack of 24 magmatic engines hooked up to a redstone energy cell, which is then hooked up to a tesseract. I have two gates on the cell, set to redstone signal when full and another set to redstone signal when empty. I have those hooked up to a rednet controller set to an "RL Latch", which the output going to the engines. This turns the engines off when the cell is full, and turns the engines back on when the cell is empty. You might have to hook the engines up to the inverted output depending on which order your inputs are.
That does not solve the problem of continuous energy draw. Two solutions:
Note: Both of these solutions do not cover the "if REC is full -> stop engines" part. That is quite simple, hopefully you know how to do this.
(a) REC solution:
1. Have a BC gate next to the REC programmed to "If NO red signal -> Redstone signal".
2. Have another gate next to your thermononon/rolling machine/etc. programmed to "has work -> red signal".
3. Have the REC programmed to "emit if no signal".
If you choose not to use conductive piping, you will need to use something like a structure pipe, or other BC pipes to run this signal back and forth. This will stop the REC from emitting energy if there is no work and then emit energy if work is present.
(b) Direct connection to engine(s):
1. On every engine have a gate programmed to "If red signal -> Redstone signal".
2. Have another gate next to your thermonono/rolling machine/etc. programmed to "has work -> red signal".
This option will allow you to connect multiple machines to this system, albeit you must understand that each machine will draw energy from this system, so if you are not using all of them you will experience energy loss. This system will also reduce the number of RECs needed.
Note: Both of these solutions do not cover the "if REC is full -> stop engines" part. That is quite simple, hopefully you know how to do this.
(a) REC solution:
1. Have a BC gate next to the REC programmed to "If NO red signal -> Redstone signal".
2. Have another gate next to your thermononon/rolling machine/etc. programmed to "has work -> red signal".
3. Have the REC programmed to "emit if no signal".
If you choose not to use conductive piping, you will need to use something like a structure pipe, or other BC pipes to run this signal back and forth. This will stop the REC from emitting energy if there is no work and then emit energy if work is present.
(b) Direct connection to engine(s):
1. On every engine have a gate programmed to "If red signal -> Redstone signal".
2. Have another gate next to your thermonono/rolling machine/etc. programmed to "has work -> red signal".
This option will allow you to connect multiple machines to this system, albeit you must understand that each machine will draw energy from this system, so if you are not using all of them you will experience energy loss. This system will also reduce the number of RECs needed.
By the sounds of it, you want the REC to be a backup source of power, just incase you run out of lava or something goes wrong, because, you will need a constant power supply to keep the AE system going. Because of this, it would be wise to not turn off all your engines, but at the same time, you need the extra engines incase you need some more power. So, I came up with a simple solution, helped with a pic.
Obviously, Magmatic engines on the left, REC in the middle and Rolling machine on the right (simulating where the power is going, be it an AE system or something esle). Basically, what is going on is, the first 2 engines are on constantly, they supply the steady power you need to keep everything going You might need more, depending on how big your AE system is, but the idea is that you have just enough (preferably slightly more) to keep everything running.
The RED in the middle is the backup power for some energy storage, it stores the energy until it is needed and if there is more energy being used than created, it will start to drain. Just so you know, the Conduit on the bottom face is blue and the one to the right is orange, so it has an input and an output.
Next to that is the structure pipe with the gate system. The one by the REC is set to space for energy, emit red pipe signal. At the other end are more gates that control the extra backup engines, the gates there are set to red pipe signal, emit a redstone signal and the engines are configured so that they run if they get a redstone signal. That way, if energy does come out of the REC, it will turn the engines on and fill itself back up.
The problem you were having is that everything was in one line, so energy went into the cell then to the rest of the system. So the REC was never going to be full unless you had an abundance of energy. With this, the REC will only drain if the demand is greater than the supply since energy can get round it and so it doesn't need to drain unless it has to.
Hopefully, that makes sense.
Obviously, Magmatic engines on the left, REC in the middle and Rolling machine on the right (simulating where the power is going, be it an AE system or something esle). Basically, what is going on is, the first 2 engines are on constantly, they supply the steady power you need to keep everything going You might need more, depending on how big your AE system is, but the idea is that you have just enough (preferably slightly more) to keep everything running.
The RED in the middle is the backup power for some energy storage, it stores the energy until it is needed and if there is more energy being used than created, it will start to drain. Just so you know, the Conduit on the bottom face is blue and the one to the right is orange, so it has an input and an output.
Next to that is the structure pipe with the gate system. The one by the REC is set to space for energy, emit red pipe signal. At the other end are more gates that control the extra backup engines, the gates there are set to red pipe signal, emit a redstone signal and the engines are configured so that they run if they get a redstone signal. That way, if energy does come out of the REC, it will turn the engines on and fill itself back up.
The problem you were having is that everything was in one line, so energy went into the cell then to the rest of the system. So the REC was never going to be full unless you had an abundance of energy. With this, the REC will only drain if the demand is greater than the supply since energy can get round it and so it doesn't need to drain unless it has to.
Hopefully, that makes sense.
That's a nice, hybrid setup, I would use it but still I would waste a bit of lava and my setup needs to be as efficient as possible. I like the RL Latch option, it would fit my needs perfectly. I got more magmatic engines than I need so there would be no way I could run out of energy. Thank you for replies.
For clarification, the RS Latch (which PowerCrystals calls an SR-Latch, for some reason) works as follows:
If inputs R ans S are both off, the output doesn't change.
If S is on and R is off, the output Q is "set" to on, and Q-bar (which PC calls Q# or something) is set to off.
If R is on and S is off, Q is "reset" to off and Q-bar is reset to on.
Both R and S on is considered an "illegal state" because, under some implementations, both Q and Q-bar will come on, which is bad because each is supposed t o be the inverse of the other. So try not to turn both inputs on at the same time.
For the purposes of running engines when energy storage is empty, I recommend wiring "Energy Empty" to S, "Energy Full" to R, and the engines (configured to require a redstone signal) to Q. This way, emptying the REC will turn on S, setting the output to run the engines, and filling the cell will reset the engines to off.
If inputs R ans S are both off, the output doesn't change.
If S is on and R is off, the output Q is "set" to on, and Q-bar (which PC calls Q# or something) is set to off.
If R is on and S is off, Q is "reset" to off and Q-bar is reset to on.
Both R and S on is considered an "illegal state" because, under some implementations, both Q and Q-bar will come on, which is bad because each is supposed t o be the inverse of the other. So try not to turn both inputs on at the same time.
For the purposes of running engines when energy storage is empty, I recommend wiring "Energy Empty" to S, "Energy Full" to R, and the engines (configured to require a redstone signal) to Q. This way, emptying the REC will turn on S, setting the output to run the engines, and filling the cell will reset the engines to off.
Here's a couple of screenshots of my setup in case they are helpful. This is a stack of 24 magmatic engines, six layers of four engines each. The red rednet color is for redstone energy cell empty. The green rednet color is for redstone energy cell full. White is the output sent to the engines.
The lazy answer would be "Don't worry about it."
BC engines are intelligent and will power down if their output is not required. A Magmatic Engine in standby mode produces only 0.4 MJ, one single bucket of lava will last almost 40 minutes.