steam boilers and mysterious explosions

[Vovk]

Hey guys. I currently have a 3x3 solid fueled steam boiler with 36 high pressure tanks on it. It is fed by a constant peat farm made of 3 bogs, which keeps it stable and outputs a nice amount of peat.

Currently drawing steam from the boiler are 4 hobbyist engines, 7 industrial engines and a steam turbine. If I'm correct this is 40+280+160 = 480 steam per tick out of my max steam of 720 per tick.

Currently supplying water are 11 accumulators and 1 pump running off 4 redstone engines, it was kind of organically built instead of planned, but now because of the explosions I suppose I should plan it out better.

oh yeah. I forgot to mention, it exploded! but I'll get into that in a second.

The accumulators are not next to water, though I think I should change it so that they are.

The steam engine has been running for 2 days without exploding. The water level, last I checked was a constant max - wasn't going up or down.

There is a world anchor over the pumps and boiler

2 hours ago the boiler exploded and I have no clue why. I'm guessing I need to supply more water, and I should do that by rebuilding the base a bit so that each accumulator is adjacent to 2 pools. I wouldn't then need the pump I don't think.

anyone else play around with steam offer any advice? how much water do you usually pump into your 36H's ?

 

[SeniLiX]

I'm running a 36H myself.
Using a single BC pump powered by 4 redstone engines. I'm using gold pipes everywhere.

Feeding the boiler with a mix of lava cells and peat. Max temp + Max water level all the time. Haven't had any problems at all.
So it's strange to me that you got so many problems with that much water.

 

[SlickSplit]

What about the steam turbine blade? They are only suppose to last about two days. The design you have described is only using a fraction of the steam generated and without the turbine would certainly be a bomb.

 

[Vovk]

the steam turbine is only used to run an MFE for charging a mining laser. When there's no more room to pump EU the steam turbine runs down to 0%. I assume this means the blade isn't being damaged and that steam isn't being consumed. I was not aware that steam turbines explode at all.


edit: i can also say that when it's at 0%, water does not come out of the steam turbine, where as at 100%, water flows out of the turbine in visible volume. I haven't been pumping this water back into the boiler, but I figured with water stable at max capacity I didn't need to.

 

[Omicron]

Boilers can run indefinitely without drawing any steam from them. There is no explosion hazard to them at all. Steam turbines don't explode either.

However, if a boiler ever runs out of water, THEN you have a bomb. It can run without water indefinitely, but place even one single drop of water in a dry boiler above a certain temperature (I believe it's somewhere around 150-200 degrees), and it will violently tear it apart.

Now, a 36H boiler should never run out of water if fed by 11 accumulators and a pump. Far less is necessary, in fact. Therefore I think your organically grown setup had a critical flaw somewhere in the water supply line. Either the piping was completely screwed up, or every single water supply unit was in a different chunk from the boiler and you managed to stay at a distance where the boiler was kept loaded and the water supply was not.

I recommend placing a single aqueous accumulator directly below the boiler, in the middle of two water blocks. If the accumulator has at least two water sourceblocks next to it, it will act as a sourceblock itself and generate a full bucket of water every second or two. That's far more than any boiler needs. It will also output upwards automatically, and because it is below the boiler, it will always be in the same chunk and loaded at the same time.

 

[Vovk]

I have set up the system you've described. and out of paranoia i've put 8 more around in a similar checkerboard formation.

now to accumulate enough peat to fire up the boiler... seems like a full chest will get it to 100% from a cold start.

 

[Vovk]

you know what, maybe it was the piping system. I had all the accumulators below the boiler piping their ouput up (they had no water sources next to them) each accumulator had 1 gold pipe and those pipes DID connect into loops. maybe water didn't refill the pipes in some loops and then the boiler ran out.... odd physics this game has. you would think that two pipes next to each other connecting = 1 doublewide pipe.

 

[Freightrain]

From my understanding, IF the water isn't what made it explode, any engines running off the steam that are not able to output their MJs into machines will eventually turn red and explode. I have not played around with this as much as a possibility, but I do know it can happen (such as if you are powering even hobbyist engines into a wooden transport pipe, it will explode, for example). Of course that shouldn't have any repercussions on the boiler. Otherwise it could be the water chunk error Omnicron described. I personally put one Accumulator with two source blocks ajacent to it under the boiler and that seems to be enough for even the largest boilers, though two is typically good to be on the safe side.

If an engine exploded and ruptured the water line, that could have also done the trick.

you know what, maybe it was the piping system. I had all the accumulators below the boiler piping their ouput up (they had no water sources next to them) each accumulator had 1 gold pipe and those pipes DID connect into loops. maybe water didn't refill the pipes in some loops and then the boiler ran out.... odd physics this game has. you would think that two pipes next to each other connecting = 1 doublewide pipe.

Aaaah, that might have done it. You don't even need those golden pipes. Aqueous Accumulators can put water right into the Boiler. Pipe Loops can cause strange things sometimes. Try it with energy pipes and you'll also get some explosions...

You didn't loop your energy pipes, did you?

 

[Vovk]

energy pipes are never looped in me base

also, engines only explode if they accumulate too much power, though they run faster and output more power if they accumulate it. They will explode if nothing is taking their power (a misplaced normal pipe instead of conductive one, etc) but running an engine into a wooden conductive pipe should allow it to never explode. wood pipes take 100% of the output of the engine and output it a certain amount at a time. the rest is destroyed, a lossy buffer. putting engines directly on the machines they're powering is the recipe for explosion of engines, as is piping one engines output into another for extended periods of time.

 

[Freightrain]

Right, but I said attaching a hobbyist's steam engine to a wooden transport pipes . Still, I've yet to experiment with the system through Conduits, but that's a bit off topic. Either way, I think the culprit was the looping water pipes, though even then I have a hard time believing that alone did your boiler in without some kind of odd glitching through wonky physics. Still, it's the only variable I can think of outside poor engine placement, which doesn't seem to be the case.

 

[Vovk]

it very well might be wonky physics glitching.

currently running an akliz server that claims to be designed with enough specs for a 32 man tekkit server, cancelled my subscription to eve online in order to pay for it lol.

Figured a server with enough CPU and Memory to run a 32 man tekkit server should be fine with me and 4 of my friends using 4 world anchors each where needed in our bases. also figured if you cannot build your base vertically enough to fit the constantly loaded parts within a 6x6 chunk area you're doing something wrong - though with forestry you have to be careful about critical systems depending on out of range chunks (biofuel plant relying on outside forestry farm etc)

minecraft uses 1500mb of memory on this server and usually not much cpu. overall it runs nice and smoothely.

However akliz are moving datacenters this week and the server's gotten a bit laggier. Also because of a lack of red power, i've been using minecarts to distribute goods - so this probably also adds a lot to the lag. I'm guessing it's this lag + the wonky physics of liquid pipe loops that did in the boiler.

New solution - still have a bunch of accumulators (I like mah water), so I put 9 under and on the sides of the boiler, all touching at least 2 water sources checkerboarded. Same peat feeding setup. If this explodes I will probably rage quit and whine about it in this thread

 

[Vovk]

btw, anyone have the math for exactly how much each size boiler/pressure tank configuration uses for water? I have this chart

Math

• Base Fuel Usage Per Tick (base) = ( (3.2 - numTanks * 0.04) / ( 16 LP or 8 HP ) ) * numTanks
• Heat Adjust Fuel Usage Per Tick = base + base * (8 - 8 * heat%)
• Steam/tick = ( 10 LP or 20 HP ) * numTanks
• 1 MJ = 5 Steam

Fuel Values


Solid

• Nearly anything that burns in a Furnace may be used to feed a Solid Fuel Firebox.
• Charcoal = 1600
• Forestry Peat = 1600
• Bucket of Lava = 2000
• Coal = 3200
• Coal Coke = 6400

Liquid

• Lava is not a valid liquid fuel, this is intentional.
• Creosote Oil = 1600
• Forestry Bio-Fuel = 16000 (changes to 32000 if you have the Plugins for Forestry mod installed)
• BuildCraft Fuel = 48000

but I'm curious if water usage is based on steam per tick or what.

 

[CoderJ]

By far the simplest (and most reliable) setup I've put together, with help from another thread in this forum is this.....

A little explanation...

1. Simple Aqueous Accumulator setup, with water on either side and the output facing up (default configuration). This does not require any MJ to run, it will output right into the boiler.
2. Solid Fueled Firebox is centered over the Aqueous Accumulator. To the SW, you see a simple setup of a Magma Crucible + Liquid Transposer. The Transposer is in 'Fill Container' (default) with red output on the back and blue input on either side. Gold pipe is attached to the output of the transposer, wooden comes from the boiler (make sure the 'solid' part is attached to the boiler, wrench might be needed). I put an Autarchic Gate on there set to work when there's an item in the inventory.
3. Hopper attached to the Magma Crucible and two stirling engines attached for 'starter' power.

So, how does this work? The hopper + crucible are full of Netherrack (cheapest solid to turn into lava). I let the power get stored into both devices (very important) before I add the netherrack, then let about two buckets worth accumulate in the liquid transposer. Then, place a bucket in the transposer and watch magic happen.... transposer will send the bucket asap to the boiler, the gate will pull the bucket out when it's empty (if you don't have gates or that fancy one, redstone engine should be fine...). Once the boiler hits 100C, I swap the two stirlings out for a commercial steam engine (or hook this into my redstone conduit grid...). As long as you keep the hopper with some netherrack in it, this system will stay ahead of the boiler until steam is produced... but make sure to get a bigger engine on (or start out with a bigger engine, either or) by that point as the stirling engines will not keep up with the demand of the crucible. If you see issues with this (and it's very possible), you might want to try jump starting the system with more power and waiting on adding the bucket (we usually wait until 10 buckets worth are available); you will also want to triple check that wooden pipe + the liquid transposer's configuration... an uh-oh there will result in the bucket either not getting sent or coming back.

As to explosions... drop down a world anchor. If the chunk unloads, bad mojo will result depending on the server's mood. If you suspect it's the engines, build some gates (I use iron OR; Engine state green or engine state blue = on signal, so engine cuts out before it get's too hot... on industrial steam engines, this allows the 8 MJ output without a fun explosion when you forget the carpenter is done). If I'm not being clear enough, let me know. I'll get my nasally narration on with Youtube .

(Quick note before the trolls; this is not wholly my idea... I just don't remember where I found it. Using latest BC/ThermalExpansion/Railcraft + MC 1.4.5; your mileage may vary. Lava buckets work in the solid fueled firebox for now, but I have a feeling that may change or ThermalExpansion may change the way something works to break this eventually....)

 

[Pinkishu]

Chunks unloading usually is only a problem if you e.g. have your pump and boiler in different chunks and the pump gets unloaded but boiler keeps running

Seems that HP boilers need 0.125 water per tick per tank and LP boilers need 0.0625 per tick per tank

I think 1 bucket is 1000

 

[Alfredo]

I've recently updated minecraft to 1.4.5 and i am using railcraft 6.0.8. Well in my test world i have a 36HP boiler, water is provided by one aquesus accumulator and fuel is provided by a small logistic system (fuel capsueles). I have 18 industrial steam engines directly on the boiler. I've set iron OR gates with the engine stage green/blue--->redstone signal condition. All is wired correctly infact i'm charging a redstone energy cell at 100MJ/t and have also a very very fast running quarry (they speeded up quarrys a lot). Problem start when quarry finishes its job and the redstone energy cell is fully charged, basically the engines get too hot and destroy the wooden conductive pipe. I have the same exact setup in a 1.4.2 world and the engines have worked hours with no machines connected and never blew up.
Hope i was clear enough and thanks in advance for any suggestion.

 

[CoderJ]

Well, I think CovertJaguar may have killed the setup already... new version just dropped and noticed this in the notes....

FIX: Fixed Lava fuel value and reduced to 1000.

I'll test the a few tweaks to the setup, but lava only lasts half as long which means having to get an extra bucket or maybe 2 into the system (the boiler can hold 3 buckets + one in the burn slot, for 4 total); with the change, lava only lasts half as long so the fire would actually be out almost before the empty bucket is pulled from the system....

Plus side is the boiler will now pull fuel from adjacent inventory.... so load up a diamond chest full of coke and go take a nap .

 

[Pinkishu]

Uh that would double the amount of crucibles needed and thus make the 144->72mj/t to a 144->0 mj/t XD

 

[Vauthil]

I've recently updated minecraft to 1.4.5 and i am using railcraft 6.0.8. Well in my test world i have a 36HP boiler, water is provided by one aquesus accumulator and fuel is provided by a small logistic system (fuel capsueles). I have 18 industrial steam engines directly on the boiler. I've set iron OR gates with the engine stage green/blue--->redstone signal condition. All is wired correctly infact i'm charging a redstone energy cell at 100MJ/t and have also a very very fast running quarry (they speeded up quarrys a lot). Problem start when quarry finishes its job and the redstone energy cell is fully charged, basically the engines get too hot and destroy the wooden conductive pipe. I have the same exact setup in a 1.4.2 world and the engines have worked hours with no machines connected and never blew up.
Hope i was clear enough and thanks in advance for any suggestion.

1.4.5 Buildcraft energy pipes have a bit of a difference in how they handle excess energy which changed in a patch in buildcraft right when 1.4.4 was hitting (which is why you wouldn't see this on an FTB 1.4.2 install, for example). There's now a chance for the pipes to explode if you're supplying energy to the pipe system and it isn't actually getting used anywhere (no more infinite power sink just because you're pumping into conductive pipes).

If you want a system that doesn't have this maintenance quirk, I would recommend switching to Thermal Expansion conduits, provided you don't have any severe needs involving gates or facades.

 

[Alfredo]

1.4.5 Buildcraft energy pipes have a bit of a difference in how they handle excess energy which changed in a patch in buildcraft right when 1.4.4 was hitting (which is why you wouldn't see this on an FTB 1.4.2 install, for example). There's now a chance for the pipes to explode if you're supplying energy to the pipe system and it isn't actually getting used anywhere (no more infinite power sink just because you're pumping into conductive pipes).

If you want a system that doesn't have this maintenance quirk, I would recommend switching to Thermal Expansion conduits, provided you don't have any severe needs involving gates or facades.

First of all thanks for the reply. Well, since i put the engines on the boiler (so i do not have to find a crazy waterproof pipes stup), i need a condition in order to let the industrial steam engines to run. Any suggestion on this, or maybe an alternative compact setup for my 18 industrial steam engines...Thanks in advance once again!!!

 

[Vauthil]

First of all thanks for the reply. Well, since i put the engines on the boiler (so i do not have to find a crazy waterproof pipes stup), i need a condition in order to let the industrial steam engines to run. Any suggestion on this, or maybe an alternative compact setup for my 18 industrial steam engines...Thanks in advance once again!!!

Not a problem at all, it's always fun working through new quirks like that. =)

A thought: If you're using conduits, is there really a need to have a condition to turn the engines on/off? You're not losing anything by running them full-time into conduits (which don't explode and will actually buffer 1000 MJ/block of conduit) since you have to keep the boiler going full time anyway. I have my industrials hooked up directly to the boiler with six of the engines on each face of the boiler and levers between them to provide the "on" signal (I like levers, what can I say), and then the conduits come off of the tips of those and it's all just kept going all the time.

(I'd totally share screens, but my desktop system is offline at the moment while I rearrange the room it's in and thus I'm relegated to a netbook to troll the forums with).