Automating Electrical Engines?

[RuiGomes]

I've started a small server (Mindcrack) to play with some friends a few days ago.

We have some industry stuff done and we decided to go with the Pulverizer instead of the Macerator, and as we have a small Wind Mill farm pumping out many EUs, we powered the pulverizer with an Electrical Engine, which require a lever to work.

Unfortunately, the lever can't be always turned on (because it draws too many EUs with no need). Is there anyway to automate this or even a better way to do this?

Here's a screenshot of what we have so far. The Batbox is powered by the windmill:


EDIT: I'm not sure if this is the correct location for this post. If it is not, then I would appreciate if someone pointed the right one out.

 

[bwillb]

Well there's buildcraft logic gates, but you need some resources to get started on that and a hell of a lot of MJs... Your best bet is probably to just manually turn it on when you need it early on.

edit: actually, you could probably get significantly better return if you just clean up your cabling. You don't want a copper cable to be more than 5 blocks long. Maybe post a picture from the other side and we can get a better idea of how you have it set up.

 

[MilConDoin]

Simply add batboxes or lv-transformers in your lines, so your copper cables are 4 long at max (not 5), because copper cables lose 0.2 EU per block per packet (loss rounded down).
Meaning: A batbox sending energy to a recipient 4 cables away will give the recipient 32 EU/p without loss.
A batbox sending energy to a recipient 19 cables away will give the recipient 28 EU/p (4 EU/p loss).
A windmill sending energy via copper cable 5 long will very often output 0 energy, because each packet is often only 1 EU big. The same windmill connected via tin cable (capacity: 5 EU/p) will only lose energy at the 40th cable.

 

[RuiGomes]

The windmills are located at y=149 and they are connected to the batbox with glass fiber cable.

Anyway, I didn't understand how adding batboxes will automatically enable or disable the electrical engine.

Here's the pic from the otherside:

 

[bwillb]

It doesn't automatically disable the engine, it helps store energy so you don't run out as easily. You're losing a good bit of energy from those cables being too long. Your glass fiber is probably also too long if you don't have any transformers or energy storage between the windmills and the batbox.

You could use an MFE in place of a batbox and it has an option to send redstone if it is full, empty, or partially full. Not the greatest solution, but it has the bonus of storing a lot more energy. But if you do this, you'll need an LV-transformer, as the MFE puts out medium voltage.

 

[RuiGomes]

It is between two cables, the other one is not visible on that picture, it is the one that runs from the wind mills as this:

I guess this is correct, right?

 

[bwillb]

It is between two cables, the other one is not visible on that picture, it is the one that runs from the wind mills as this:
I guess this is correct, right?

Yeah that's fine. Just make sure your copper cables are shorter than 5 blocks and your glass fiber are shorter than 40.

 

[MilConDoin]

Batboxes won't automate the engine usage, but they will reduce the unnecessary power loss. Your compressor loses 2 EU/p. If it is currently without overclockers, it will use twice as much energy as necessary. Your furnace loses 1 EU/p (so costing 4 EU/t instead of 3 EU/t without benefit).
I don't see a direct solution to your problem without gates.
What you could do as a workaround: Build yourself a redstone energy cell and fill it with the engine. This cell will be able to fuel your pulverizer for quite some time. This way you would only activate the engine very rarely but for a relatively long time. This could make manual handlung less of a hassle.

P.S.: You don't need wooden pipes on the road between your pulverizer and furnace. You could also put the pulv. directly above your furnace, configure it to output to the bottom and thus have less items being piped around. In this small scale it's not much of a problem, but later on this could help reduce lag, when everything is scaled way bigger. Just as a FYI for the future.

 

[purplefantum]

Iron logic gates, no questions about it tbh, has work redstone signal, shove it in the condutive pipe and hey presto.

 

[zooqooo]

Okay someone said this earlier but I'll elaborate. Gates are buildcraft components that can detect the state of adjacent blocks and react. A common use of a gate is to detect the need for work and activate a redstone signal. Gates aren't cheap though, the basic gate technically only requires one piece of redstone, but you need an assembly table and the lasers to go with it, not to mention a ton of power.

Going strait for gates would be silly at this stage, but there are other things you could do to make things go smoother before then.

1) as everyone else has said, clean up your wire, you are wasting power because your copper cable is to long. You can run it adjacent to the diamond wire with paint. (the rollers, not the cans/brushes) or you can just upgrade from copper.
2)look into redstone energy cells and conduits: not to bad to make, just requires a lot of machines. Once you have it, it makes everything better as it stores BC energy, and allows you to control the flow of it through the system. Once you do get around to gates, it will make life so much easier in regards ti power.

 

[purplefantum]

5 diamonds for the table, 2 per laser, so 7 for the most basic setup. Everything else is minimal effort. But with minium stones you can go iron to gold to diamond, problem solved. SUre it needs cleaning up but a minimal gate is a easy enough to do.

 

[zooqooo]

not to mention the tens of thousands of MJ required and the insane amount of time it will take with only one laser

 

[whythisname]

You can also use an EU Splitter cable and cut off the EU that way (and thus stop the engine). They're not super efficient as you'll lose 0.5 EU per packet in that 1 piece of cable, but it's easy to make and gets the job done. You do need a Repeater or something to send in a redstone signal, a regular piece of redstone or a red alloy cable won't switch it (check out the wiki page I linked, it explains it as well).

It's a lot cheaper than setting up all the stuff needed to make gates and it'll get the job done (I think).

 

[zooqooo]

but that doesn't automate it, it just moves the lever

 

[RuiGomes]

Regarding the power loss due to the long copper cables, I've made a few changes, let me know if this is optimized now.
The longest copper cable runs from the corner Batbox until the other batbox powering the furnace and it is only 4 cables long.

 

[zooqooo]

That should be much better now, the uninterrupted cable running between the two batboxes might be a problem, but I don't know as much about the intricate nature of EU as I should

 

[purplefantum]

Batboxes reset the EU rating running through a line, so they cut down on loss, kinda like an EU buffer, no reason not to have it run through multiple bat boxes as they are cheap.

 

[potter]

Another thing to note:
The wooden transport pipes in between the pulverizer and the electric furnace are not necessary.
Thermal Expansion machines auto-ejects items and a wooden pipe is only needed to extract, not input.
There's no need for you to replace them though, just something to note further along the road.

 

[DZCreeper]

The windmills are located at y=149 and they are connected to the batbox with glass fiber cable.

Let me get this straight, you made a windmill tower that most likely outputs 30 eu/t or so on average, and ran glass fibre cable from the batbox located near the windmills, all the way to ground level.

What could possibly make you use copper cable for the most important part of the setup?, from storage to machines. Clearly its not some sort of shortage of diamonds.

As for auto starting the engine, I would suggest an iron gate located next to a redstone energy storage block from Thermal Expansion. Set the iron gate to detect if its full. When it is, make sure it outputs a redstone signal. Put that signal into a NOT gate, that then connects to the engine.

 

[purplefantum]

What could possibly make you use copper cable for the most important part of the setup?

Imporantce isn't the point of cable type it's distance. Long distances with small EU packets need better cable or by the time the windmills have sent 1 eu down 2 miles of cables you'll get nothing out the other end. Copper is fine for short distances as the loss isn't enough to matter, but your suggestion or running copper from the windmills and glass fibre from the batbox, you'd be getting close to no EU with that setup.