And a question about GT EBF. What are energy requerments?
A bit more specificly:
I have properly built EBF, with 2 batt buffers and 2 energy hatches. The problem is, EBF only running when there are a total of 4 or more batteries in the system. I have tried more Hatches/buffers and still, 4 or more batts required to run EBF.
What mechanics are behind this?
Each LV Energy Hatch can accept up to TWO amps. The first time you run the EBF, you need three LV Energy Hatches, that's why the Achievement for the LV Energy Hatch which pops up the first time you make one says "You need three of them!"
The Aluminium ingot recipe for the EBF requires 120 EU/t using standard Aluminium Dust. Two LV Energy Hatches providing 2 amps each, theoretically provides 32 EU/t * 2 amps * 2 Hatches = 128 EU/t. However, due to machine losses and cable losses, you will not actually get 128 EU/t, nor even 120 EU/t but something a bit less, perhaps 100 EU/t. Also, you probably don't have Duct Tape yet or a Soldering Iron with Fine Soldering Alloy Wire to fix all the Maintenance Issues on the EBF when you first make it... resulting in at least a 10% energy penalty. The bottom line is that you need 3 LV Energy Hatches, with 5 LV Steam Turbines to run the EBF the first few times, until you can make enough Aluminium to make a better setup (such as using a single MV Steam Turbine instead of the 5 LV Turbines). You should have 2 LV Steam Turbines into a 4-Battery Buffer Box containing at least 2 LV batteries and output the battery box into an LV Energy Hatch. This accounts for 2 Energy Hatches and 4 LV Turbines. The last energy hatch only will need one LV Steam Turbine and thus you can even run it without a battery buffer if you wish. But you def need at least 2 batteries in the other 2 buffer boxes - because only 2 batteries will provide 2 amps to the EBF. You can insert 4 batteries into each Buffer Box, which is a better setup because it will take longer for all your batteries to run down. This can theoretically provide 4 amps to your circuit, however since the LV Energy Hatches only can accept 2 amps, it will only "draw" 2 amps out of the battery boxes. The extra 2 amps (or 2 batteries) will NOT cause any overload problems, so no need to worry about that. The first few times you'll only be able to process one or two dusts at a time before you'll need to let the EBF rest and let all your batteries re-charge. The EBF will obviously fail when all your batteries get down to zero, and you'll lose a valuable dust/ingot, so keep an eye on it and don't let that happen. To me, the real key for the first-run of the EBF is "batteries, batteries, batteries". If you can afford it, use 9-battery buffer boxes and your EBF will run a long time! However, that would prob be a waste of materials, you really only need the 3 Energy Hatches, 5 LV Steam Turbines, 2 Battery Buffer Boxes and 4 GT batteries. Also note, this same concept will also apply when you get to the EBF recipes requiring 480 EU/t. I still cannot run my EBF for extended periods of time, I can process 4 Tungsten dusts into ingots before I have to take a break and let the batteries recharge... I have 4,000,000 total EU of batteries in-line with my EBF power supply, and yet they still only last for 4 Tungsten because my 16 LV Turbines cannot quite provide a full 512 EU/t thru all the cables and GT Transformers with the losses adding up. At some point I will add more LV Turbines/Transformers in an effort to get the power supply closer to a full 512 EU/t.
One other thing - you will probably discover that one of your LV Energy Hatches runs down quicker than the other ones do. I have never been able to figure out why this happens, but you'll probably know what I mean at some point when you see it happening. For instance, one battery buffer box may discharge its batteries quicker than the other one does. In this case, just keep an eye on the battery levels, and either swap full batteries in manually, or else swap batteries from one box to the other. Obviously, do not remove a battery for even an instant if you only have 2 batteries in the buffers. I run a full 4 batteries so I could swap them if some were running out faster than others. Basically, you need to "babysit the big dummy" for a while until you get your power infrastructure sorted out (which Aluminium ingots are obviously a big key). Sometimes moving things around helps a bit too, re-arranging your circuitry, which can often be a bit of a mess with so much stuff crowded around the EBF in this phase.