big reactors power monitor auto off/on problem

[MiningPro]

basically being trying to set it up to turn on and off at a certain percent but its not working at all... I have a redstone port, and tried different ways of connecting, but it doesn't work.

 

[GreenZombie]

You need three redstone ports to control a passive big reactor with just vanilla redstone.

One to output when close to empty, one when full, One to turn it on.

Hook them up with a simple redstone latch.

 

[MiningPro]

I thought the power monitor block for ftb infinity, worked different, I thought you could just colnnectthem up with conduit... to red stone port, then it would work, hmmmmm my reactor is only 5x5

 

[GamerwithnoGame]

You need three redstone ports to control a passive big reactor with just vanilla redstone.

One to output when close to empty, one when full, One to turn it on.

Hook them up with a simple redstone latch.

You haven't got a diagram handy for this do you? It sounds very useful, but I'm having a bit of trouble visualising how you'd hook it up.

 

[lazaruz76]

I don't think that the power moniter from ender io can read the internal power buffer of a reactor itself. Usually if I go this route of automatic control I add an ender io capacitor bank for my power storage. The power monitor reads the storage bank and turns on or off the reactor from that. In this case I usually set the monitor to turn off the reactor when power is 99-100% full. Since the monitor is reading the bank and NOT the reactor there should be enough room to store the excess power in the reactor itself, which in turn will be drained first as your base uses power. Just make sure you use a top tier power line and enough capacitor banks to drain all of your power from the reactor as fast as the reactor makes it. Usually I will use at least one more bank than needed for this. Keep in mind that each cap. bank in the multi block add 5000 rf/t to the total input and out put of the storage system. So if I have a reactor making 14000 rf/t I would make a storage bank of at least 3 Cap. banks for a total if 15000 rf/t input and output but would add one more for an even 20000 rf/t input and output and have room for upgrades later. Now it has been a while since i went this route so I am not sure of my numbers since the tier system was added to the Cap. banks. You may want to do some testing in a creative world to find the correct layout and numbers.

 

[GreenZombie]

You haven't got a diagram handy for this do you? It sounds very useful, but I'm having a bit of trouble visualising how you'd hook it up.

I dont have a pic of the Big Reactor setup, but here is a Redstone NOR Latch.

The two swtiches pictured correspond to the two outputs. Put the "full" redstone input on the left, pressing that button will turn the right hand side off. Put the "empty" (<20%) sensor on the right. Giving that side a signal turns the right hand side on.
Additionally, just feed the redstone signal from the rhs back into the redstone port you have configured to turn the reactor on. (not too visible is a 2nd redstone torch on the backmost block mirroring the placement of the front torch).

So, while the reactor is <20% capacity, the redstone output from that redstone port will force the right hand side of the circuit to be on.
Once its above 20% (but below 80%) the latch will remember its last state (and so keep the reactor on), until
Once it hits or exceeds 80%, the left hand side of the circuit will activate, forcing the right hand side off, allowing the reactor to shut down.
Once below 80%, again there are no active outputs, but the circuit will remember its last state, (off) and allow the internal storage to drain to 20%.
repeat.

--
Additionally, if you have MFR, there are two ways to hook up a RedNet port.

The first way uses one RedNet port and a Rednet controller. You configure the Big Reactor RedNet port to output its energy level on one signal color, and to use a different signal color to control its control rod insertion %. Run a rednet cable to the rednet controller, where you choose the operation that simply sets the second signal as an output to be equal to the first input.

This means when the reactor is full, or close to full, the control rods will be fully inserted and the reactor will be off, or at least running really cold (and rather efficiently). As it empties the rods will retract and it will produce more power. The reactor will converge on a control rod insertion that matches your energy use. But which might not be at the best efficiency.

Or you can simply use two rednet ports and some rednet cable to achieve the same effect without using a controller at all.

With one port and a controller, you can use more signal lines and logical conditions in the controller to program a on at 20, off at 80 type behaviour too.

 

[GamerwithnoGame]

I dont have a pic of the Big Reactor setup, but here is a Redstone NOR Latch.

The two swtiches pictured correspond to the two outputs. Put the "full" redstone input on the left, pressing that button will turn the right hand side off. Put the "empty" (<20%) sensor on the right. Giving that side a signal turns the right hand side on.
Additionally, just feed the redstone signal from the rhs back into the redstone port you have configured to turn the reactor on. (not too visible is a 2nd redstone torch on the backmost block mirroring the placement of the front torch).

So, while the reactor is <20% capacity, the redstone output from that redstone port will force the right hand side of the circuit to be on.
Once its above 20% (but below 80%) the latch will remember its last state (and so keep the reactor on), until
Once it hits or exceeds 80%, the left hand side of the circuit will activate, forcing the right hand side off, allowing the reactor to shut down.
Once below 80%, again there are no active outputs, but the circuit will remember its last state, (off) and allow the internal storage to drain to 20%.
repeat.

--
Additionally, if you have MFR, there are two ways to hook up a RedNet port.

The first way uses one RedNet port and a Rednet controller. You configure the Big Reactor RedNet port to output its energy level on one signal color, and to use a different signal color to control its control rod insertion %. Run a rednet cable to the rednet controller, where you choose the operation that simply sets the second signal as an output to be equal to the first input.

This means when the reactor is full, or close to full, the control rods will be fully inserted and the reactor will be off, or at least running really cold (and rather efficiently). As it empties the rods will retract and it will produce more power. The reactor will converge on a control rod insertion that matches your energy use. But which might not be at the best efficiency.

Or you can simply use two rednet ports and some rednet cable to achieve the same effect without using a controller at all.

With one port and a controller, you can use more signal lines and logical conditions in the controller to program a on at 20, off at 80 type behaviour too.

Ah awesome, that's brilliant! Cheers @Chris Becke

 

[RJS]

I thought the power monitor block for ftb infinity, worked different, I thought you could just colnnectthem up with conduit... to red stone port, then it would work, hmmmmm my reactor is only 5x5

Power Monitors from Ender IO cannot read the internal buffer of the reactor, but they can read a capacitor bank if they are connected to it via a power conduit.

Also, Ender IOs redstone conduits don't seem to play nicely with redstone ports (in my experience) so I tend to use a speck of Redstone dust between the conduit and the port. Set the power monitor to output a signal when the bank is low, and turn off when the bank is at 99%. Set the redstone port to set control rod levels based on signal - no signal means 100% insertion, signal means 0% insertion.