[Big Reactors] Help with on/off system

[Pyure]

Yeah was gonna suggest something similar. Your main problem was you didn't have any moderation material around the outside. That setup can be even further enhanced by adding another layer of Ender around it. You will need 2 layers to absorb all the radiation afaik. And if it was possible you could improve it even further by having Cryotheum cooling the rods and then 2 layers of ender next to it. But unsure if it would be possible to actually build it with the two liquids next to each other.

Probably not possible:
http://br.sidoh.org/#reactor-design...11XC4ECXCXCXCXCXCXC4EC11XC2E3G11C6G11E6G11E3G

Its really funny you say that, I had already immediately done that (with graphite instead since I don't have access to exotic thermal expansion materials)

This is what I currently use:
http://br.sidoh.org/#reactor-design...GDXGXGXD4GD5XD4GDXGXGXD4GD5XD2G3O5D6O5G6O5G3O

As shown, its running at the same efficiency I currently run it at, which is to say, not very efficient. Its always running cold because I only have one turbine. I should have scaled it differently: maybe a level higher, a level narrower, and no gaps between rods at all so it runs hotter.

 

[rhn]

Its really funny you say that, I had already immediately done that (with graphite instead since I don't have access to exotic thermal expansion materials)

This is what I currently use:
http://br.sidoh.org/#reactor-design...GDXGXGXD4GD5XD4GDXGXGXD4GD5XD2G3O5D6O5G6O5G3O

As shown, its running at the same efficiency I currently run it at, which is to say, not very efficient. Its always running cold because I only have one turbine. I should have scaled it differently: maybe a level higher, a level narrower, and no gaps between rods at all so it runs hotter.

Heh. I am currently using this :
http://br.sidoh.org/#reactor-design...ontrolRodInsertion=42&layout=G2CGC2X2C2XCG2CG
Powers my 2x 1732mB/t turbines.
(Actually using the Graphite blocks in the corners as Big Reactor doesn't seem to like the Random Things Glass and Graphite is cheap.)

 

[Pyure]

awesome! I'm gratified to see this; now I know I don't need to focus on a monstrous reactor of doom. Glad you clarified the graphite blocks; for a sec I thought they had a function I didn't know about.

I don't understand the point of producing a turbine that outputs 80k mb/t if that means you need 40 freaking turbines to make it worthwhile.

 

[rhn]

awesome! I'm gratified to see this; now I know I don't need to focus on a monstrous reactor of doom. Glad you clarified the graphite blocks; for a sec I thought they had a function I didn't know about.

I don't understand the point of producing a turbine that outputs 80k mb/t if that means you need 40 freaking turbines to make it worthwhile.

Yeah I would never go above a 7x7x7(outside) active reactor I think. And I would only go that large for efficiency(low fuel consumption, keep a low temperature even if the reactor steam buffer fills up) and even then it is rather a moot point due to I always have MFR in the pack so I can use as much yellorium as I want.

 

[twisto51]

I didn't see anybody mention the simplest---and in my opinion best---solution.

Stick two rednet ports in it. Connect them with rednet cable. Set one port to rod insertion, set the other to power drain. That's it, you're done.

You don't need a PRC, you don't need any programs, scripts, or external logic hardware.

The OP specifically said passively-cooled, so I don't want to hear how this won't work for actively cooled. If I run actively-cooled I use excess power gen to produce yellorium so there is no reason to turn them off, ever.

 

[Pyure]

I didn't see anybody mention the simplest---and in my opinion best---solution.

Stick two rednet ports in it. Connect them with rednet cable. Set one port to rod insertion, set the other to power drain. That's it, you're done.

You don't need a PRC, you don't need any programs, scripts, or external logic hardware.

The OP specifically said passively-cooled, so I don't want to hear how this won't work for actively cooled. If I run actively-cooled I use excess power gen to produce yellorium so there is no reason to turn them off, ever.

"But Twisto!" I say, "What if I don't understand how the hell it works?? Can you explain it to me?"

 

[twisto51]

"But Twisto!" I say, "What if I don't understand how the hell it works?? Can you explain it to me?"

One rednet port adjusts the control rods based upon what the other rednet port tells it about the RF buffer. The more energy drained from the buffer the hotter it will run the reactor(in terms of RF output) to try to maintain/refill the buffer.

 

[Pyure]

One rednet port adjusts the control rods based upon what the other rednet port tells it about the RF buffer. The more energy drained from the buffer the hotter it will run the reactor(in terms of RF output) to try to maintain/refill the buffer.

But couldn't use you use the RF buffer on the turbine to accomplish this as well (so you could use your method for active-cooled)?

 

[rhn]

I didn't see anybody mention the simplest---and in my opinion best---solution.

Stick two rednet ports in it. Connect them with rednet cable. Set one port to rod insertion, set the other to power drain. That's it, you're done.

You don't need a PRC, you don't need any programs, scripts, or external logic hardware.

As I said to the last guy who proposed this (in this thread): It is very ill advised to regulate the reactor on the control rods if you care the slightest about fuel efficiency. If there is a large power draw from the reactor it will without hesitation raise the temperature of the reactor as high as it can, completely wrecking your fuel efficiency. We are talking only getting 1/3 - 1/10th the power out of your fuel.

 

[twisto51]

But couldn't use you use the RF buffer on the turbine to accomplish this as well (so you could use your method for active-cooled)?

Turbines are different. You don't need to adjust the control rods of your reactor, ever. Presumably you want 2000mb/t or you want 0mb/t (reactor on vs. reactor off). Turbines are about maintaining the sweet spot in terms of rotation speed. Screwing around with rod insertion on the fly is a great way to NOT do that, lol.

Now you could make very complex setups that spin up/down turbines based upon need but there is almost no practical reason whatsoever to do so because the only resource it drains is a) unlimited and b) produced for less energy than using it creates. For capacity on demand like that I would use a passively-cooled reactor to handle overflow while I had an actively-cooled turbine running all the time to handle average load.

 

[twisto51]

As I said to the last guy who proposed this (in this thread): It is very ill advised to regulate the reactor on the control rods if you care the slightest about fuel efficiency. If there is a large power draw from the reactor it will without hesitation raise the temperature of the reactor as high as it can, completely wrecking your fuel efficiency. We are talking only getting 1/3 - 1/10th the power out of your fuel.

I don't have a problem with that since the only alternative---with any control method---is not meeting peak energy demand.

If you're solely concerned about fuel efficiency you run banks of reactors set to peak fuel efficiency and then just turn on/off as many as needed for current power draw. In a case like that I'd use one PRC and as many passively-cooled reactors as required to meet peak energy demand. I've never been in a situation like that in modded minecraft though, as Yellorium is a renewable resource.

I've never run out of yellorium, even when running reactors at worst possible efficiency in an effort to speed up Cyanite production.

 

[rhn]

But couldn't use you use the RF buffer on the turbine to accomplish this as well (so you could use your method for active-cooled)?

You really dont want to mess with your turbines RPM once you get them spun up into one of the sweet spots. Deviating just a tiny bit from 900/1800 RPM will greatly reduce the power produced(yes even increasing RPM will reduce power produced!). You want them set at the right RPM and then stay there.

 

[Pyure]

Turbines are different. You don't need to adjust the control rods of your reactor, ever. Presumably you want 2000mb/t or you want 0mb/t (reactor on vs. reactor off). Turbines are about maintaining the sweet spot in terms of rotation speed. Screwing around with rod insertion on the fly is a great way to NOT do that, lol.

Now you could make very complex setups that spin up/down turbines based upon need but there is almost no practical reason whatsoever to do so because the only resource it drains is a) unlimited and b) produced for less energy than using it creates. For capacity on demand like that I would use a passively-cooled reactor to handle overflow while I had an actively-cooled turbine running all the time to handle average load.

You really dont want to mess with your turbines RPM once you get them spun up into one of the sweet spots. Deviating just a tiny bit from 900/1800 RPM will greatly reduce the power produced(yes even increasing RPM will reduce power produced!). You want them set at the right RPM and then stay there.

I'd kinda forgotten about that. Now that you mention it, I keep my rods at a strict 89% and never touch them (my single turbine can only handle 1300 mb/t just now)

 

[rhn]

I don't have a problem with that since the only alternative---with any control method---is not meeting peak energy demand.

If you're solely concerned about fuel efficiency you run banks of reactors set to peak fuel efficiency and then just turn on/off as many as needed for current power draw. In a case like that I'd use one PRC and as many passively-cooled reactors as required to meet peak energy demand. I've never been in a situation like that in modded minecraft though, as Yellorium is a renewable resource.

The smarter solution IMO would be to have a sizeable buffer through which all consumption is channelled(EnderIO Capacitor Banks are ideal for this due to their "stackable" buffer size and throughput). You then have for example a actively cooled reactor+turbine(s) charge this Capacitor Bank up all the time for baseline usage. You then use the EIO Power Monitors to register when the Capacitor Banks capacity gets lower and in stages turns on more power solutions.

Peak power usage can usually be dealt with by the capacitor bank and the first power solution. Prolonged stuff will result in several tiers of reactors/generators/whatever turns on one by one. If it is a passive Big reactor that is turned on, it is simply controlled by the script I linked earlier turning it on/off depending on draw from its internal buffer.

This is my preferred method of power control. Going to be building it once again in the coming days.

 

[Pyure]

The smarter solution IMO would be to have a sizeable buffer through which all consumption is channelled(EnderIO Capacitor Banks are ideal for this due to their "stackable" buffer size and throughput). You then have for example a actively cooled reactor+turbine(s) charge this Capacitor Bank up all the time for baseline usage. You then use the EIO Power Monitors to register when the Capacitor Banks capacity gets lower and in stages turns on more power solutions.

Peak power usage can usually be dealt with by the capacitor bank and the first power solution. Prolonged stuff will result in several tiers of reactors/generators/whatever turns on one by one. If it is a passive Big reactor that is turned on, it is simply controlled by the script I linked earlier turning it on/off depending on draw from its internal buffer.

This is my preferred method of power control. Going to be building it once again in the coming days.

This is how I usually do it too (minus particularly clever scripting), but Twisto's solution has a certain charm. I love the idea of having a monitor informing me of which reactors are actively running

 

[kla_sch]

But couldn't use you use the RF buffer on the turbine to accomplish this as well (so you could use your method for active-cooled)?

No. It's much more complicate: The turbine work only efficient, if it works with 900 or 1800 RPM. To reach this speeds, you need a turbine specific hot fluid flow rate. If you want to produce energy on demand, you have to switch between the different speed rates on one side and regulate the reactor to produce the needed hot fluid on the other side.
I have made a CC program, which control the speed of the turbines. The next step is to regulate the reactor control rod based on it's hot fluid tank. This is a little bit problematic, because the hot fluid tank is very small.
The last step is a program, which switch the turbines based on external energy cell levels. The internal turbine cells are also too small (only 1,000 kRF, the reactor has 10,000 kRF) to do the job.

Have fun, kla_sch

 

[ChemE]

Changing direction a little, this is generally the last passively cooled reactor that I build prior to making a turbine. I have yet to find a more fuel efficient design in the shall we say modest power output category. This puts out 11.3kRF/t which for me mid game is more than enough to run an Ender Quarry with the speed I upgrade and a nice AE2.0 system.

http://br.sidoh.org/#reactor-design...8C5X8C5X4C4O5C8O5C8O5C8O5C4O&modpack=defaults

I forgot to mention one nice thing about this is it only takes 4 buckets of gelid cryotheum because of flow.

 

[ChemE]

Regarding maximizing fuel efficiency of actively cooled reactors, I was once able to double my previous best efforts by using a pulsed design in creative. Not sure I would ever build this in survival but it plays off the fact that the reactor will generated steam when it is off and hot. A timer would turn the reactor on and it would immediately rocket up to 3000C+ and then just as fast turn off. 8 buckets of steam per tick were being pulled out by a TE4 tesseract (love that trick) and dumped into a quantum tank from Gregtech. The reactor's duty cycle was around 25% but it was making steam almost 100% of the time because it takes so long to cool from 3000C but it can get there so quickly. This allowed a 7x7x16 turbine to stay spinning at 1840 rpm with 4 full enderium coils. Feeding that much water to the reactor is only possible with liquid transfer nodes as far as I know. Anyway, try pulsing a crazy hot reactor on and off for even better fuel efficiency.

 

[r0lyat]

Changing direction a little, this is generally the last passively cooled reactor that I build prior to making a turbine. I have yet to find a more fuel efficient design in the shall we say modest power output category. This puts out 11.3kRF/t which for me mid game is more than enough to run an Ender Quarry with the speed I upgrade and a nice AE2.0 system.

http://br.sidoh.org/#reactor-design...8C5X8C5X4C4O5C8O5C8O5C8O5C4O&modpack=defaults

I forgot to mention one nice thing about this is it only takes 4 buckets of gelid cryotheum because of flow.

Okay, so I'm having an issue with your CC solution, ChemE. I edited the startup, put in the script you made and saved it, but it didnt seem to do anything - probably due to the fact ive never really used computor craft and have no idea how it works... so would you be able to walk me through it perhaps?

I also just tried out @Chris Becke and the explanation of "reactor to turn off at 95% and only turn on again at 5%." is exactly what I'd like (assuming everyone elses ideas do the same but not sure since i couldnt get a few of them working ) however again I'm a noob at vanilla redstone mechanics beyond a T flip-flop and i made the rsNorlatch in his image but couldnt figure out how to conenct it to the on/off redstone port.

As has been stated a few times, yeah I'd like to avoid systems that change the fuel rods (unless they return them to the percentages they were at prior) as my big reactor setup is designed to be at 40% for efficiency. (http://br.sidoh.org/#reactor-design...C5XC2ECXCXCXC2EC5XC2ECXCXCXC2EC5XCE2O5C4O5E2O)

P.S. @ChemE thats a nice setup, I didnt realise the coolant effects added if they werent source blocks.

edit: P.P.S. that 'pulsing' idea is very fascinating haha. Just played around with it in creative doing it manually on a huge reactor, got about 20 seconds of 10-40k rf/t for free for 3 seconds of 1.4mb/t. haha

 

[ljfa]

however again I'm a noob at vanilla redstone mechanics beyond a T flip-flop and i made the rsNorlatch in his image but couldnt figure out how to conenct it to the on/off redstone port.

Vanilla redstone sucks indeed
it's easier with ProjectRed but not as easy as one magical block