Combustion Engine Questions

[AlanEsh]

Hi everyone,

So, I've done the "steam boiler" route to produce MJ a couple of times, but I want to try another form of MJ power generation. I've been afraid of the Combustion Engine since day 1, with all the horror stories of them exploding. Well, I think I have a plan that should keep their explody nature in check, and make for a fun power system.

First, I'm not the kind of player who needs constant high levels of power output. Typically I am running one Quarry, plus intermittently a bank of 4-8 Lasers, and a small cluster of Refineries.
So basically, all I need is a good buffer, and an OK power plant.

My plan is as follows, please shoot holes in it and offer suggestions to improve it. Also please avoid suggestions like "abandon your idea and make a magmatic engine system!!!", because the goal here is to make a reliable MJ power plant with Combustion Engines

1. I will (at least initially) be harvesting Oil and pumping it back to a large RC tank in my base via Liquid Tesseracts. There it will be refined to Fuel and stored in another large RC tank.
2. A bank of (initially) 8 Combustion Engines will be lined up with Aqueous Accumulators under them, and a line of Liquiducts along their backs keeping them fed Fuel.
3. The engine outputs will feed into a Redstone Energy Conduit line and off to a set of buffering Redstone Energy Cells. So I'd have Engines >> Conduit >> buffer Cell (3 way split, initially) >> 3 distribution Cells (one on each split).
4. The buffer Cell attached directly to the Conduit coming from the Engines will have a Structure Pipe + an Autarch Gate attached. When the Gate detects Cell "has room for more energy" it will send a redstone signal which will turn on the bank of Engines.
5. When the initial buffer Cell is full, the engines will shut off.

I think this plan is fine, aside from one point; if I am using a small amount of MJ, the buffer Cell is going to repeatedly toggle my Engines on and off. I would like to come up with a simple way to initiate the redstone signal less often but for a longer duration. Any ideas?

 

[AlanEsh]

Maybe a circuit that, when "has room for energy" is detected, starts a 1 minute timer. Once that timer completes, the signal is passed on to start the combustion engines. . . However the "kill" signal would have to work immediately when the "has room for energy" state has cleared.

 

[Zjarek_S]

I'm connecting my engines to first energy cell via normal conductive pipes to use gates/pipe wire, it is really not worth to use conduits there. If you build good on demand system, pipes won't explode. For combustion engines I use iron gate on conductive pipe next to cell and iron gates on wooden conductive pipes. If cell is full emit red pipe signal, if red pipe signal is off run engines (redstone signal on) and if engine is orange red pipe signal (if any engine starts overheating, shut off everything). Combustion engines have cooldown period, so this setup works without quick on/off cycles, but for other engines I'd add simple RS circuit to enable engines for full cycle (REC empty -> start engines, REC full -> stop engines).

 

[BeastFeeder]

You'll probably find that you dont need that many aqueous accumulators. If you put water on two sides, one AA will easily keep 3 combustion engines full of water if you use gold water proof pipes. One AA might be able to feed more engines if you put water on four sides (but I'd test that in creative due to their explody nature).

 

[Zjarek_S]

I don't think I've ever run more than one combustion engine before making assembly table and laser. Gates can make 100 % sure that your engine won't explode even if you mess up cooling, for example putting lever on a ceiling which powers block and this block powers aqueous accumulator, or you break pipe by accident and didn't see it in time.

 

[AlanEsh]

I'm connecting my engines to first energy cell via normal conductive pipes to use gates/pipe wire, it is really not worth to use conduits there. If you build good on demand system, pipes won't explode. For combustion engines I use iron gate on conductive pipe next to cell and iron gates on wooden conductive pipes. If cell is full emit red pipe signal, if red pipe signal is off run engines (redstone signal on) and if engine is orange red pipe signal (if any engine starts overheating, shut off everything). Combustion engines have cooldown period, so this setup works without quick on/off cycles, but for other engines I'd add simple RS circuit to enable engines for full cycle (REC empty -> start engines, REC full -> stop engines).

I'm going to play around with this a bit in creative and probably ask you for more details once I understand your setup better.

 

[AlanEsh]

For combustion engines I use iron gate on conductive pipe next to cell and iron gates on wooden conductive pipes.

You don't specify exact gate... I've tried Autarch Iron AND Gates and Autarch Iron OR Gates. Both seem to work the same, does it matter?

Thanks for the help, this is going to be easier and more compact than I thought.[DOUBLEPOST=1364518330][/DOUBLEPOST]

You'll probably find that you dont need that many aqueous accumulators. If you put water on two sides, one AA will easily keep 3 combustion engines full of water if you use gold water proof pipes. One AA might be able to feed more engines if you put water on four sides (but I'd test that in creative due to their explody nature).

One AA with water on 4 sides indeed is plenty for 8 engines. Thanks!

 

[Zjarek_S]

You don't specify exact gate... I've tried Autarch Iron AND Gates and Autarch Iron OR Gates. Both seem to work the same, does it matter?

In this case you don't have the same actions for 2 or more triggers on one gate, so it doesn't matter what gate do you use (autarchic is unnecessary).

One AA with water on 4 sides indeed is plenty for 8 engines. Thanks!

It definitely isn't when engines are fully heat up. However it can be a good test if your gate system is disabling the engines correctly (test the system with large output, for example recharging 10 energy cells).

 

[McGreed]

Sorry for resurrecting this thread, but thought it would be better to keep the subject within this.
I'm currently having issues with gates and the combustion engine. It seem that gates only detects one engine connected to a wooden pipe, even if more engines is connected, which result in engines blowing up, because the gate doesn't detect that they are overheating and turning them off.
This was not an issue in BC standalone, the gate would disable all the engines whenever they got overheated. Also, there is no more an "engine safe" (blue and green) option, only separate states. Is this intended?

 

[Zjarek_S]

"Engine safe" was added by some BC addon not included in packs currently. Gates detect condition in every suitable thing around them, I've found no problem when detecting "engine orange" and shutting engines off when this happen. If you are detecting blue or green states, it will activate if any engine is green or blue, so it isn't much help in this situation.

 

[McGreed]

If I have two engines connected to the same wooden pipe and a irongate on the pipe, and the condition that only redstone on if engine is blue, when one engine is blue and another goes green, it doesn't stop them, because the gate detects the blue one. This was not an issue in vanilla version of BC.

 

[Zjarek_S]

If I have two engines connected to the same wooden pipe and a irongate on the pipe, and the condition that only redstone on if engine is blue, when one engine is blue and another goes green, it doesn't stop them, because the gate detects the blue one. This was not an issue in vanilla version of BC.

It behaved this way (without stoping when one engine goes green) with this condition with only BC 3.1.5 in MC 1.2.5, so I really don't know what do you mean by "vanilla version of BC":

Unstacking items for an additional feature .

 

[Maldroth]

I used Combustion Engines heavily now that I learned how to cool them properly. The secret is the Aqueous Accumulator. The AA when supplied with two water sources will produce enough water to cool 4 engines at once. The trick is knowing how water flows in BC pipes and liquiducts. For BC pipes you HAVE to use golden pipes, cobblestone pipes will not move enough water. Also a single side of the AA will output enough water to keep an engine cool when using BC pipes. The reason you are limited is the amount of water the BC pipes can move. Want another engine? hook up another BC pipe on another side of the AA. When pipes merge you create a bottle neck and that will restrict the flow of water so with multiple BC pipes you will not want them to touch. It is ok if they connect together at the engines if that is the last in the line.

Liquiducts make this much easier as you can pull much more water out of an AA when the liquiduct is in extraction mode and you give it a redstone signal. You know a liquiduct is in extraction mode as you hit it with a wrench and you see the arrow facing out on the source connection. With the liquducts you can just connect them along as a line and the won't have any trouble keeping up with the water demand.

You can use structure pipe attached to the line of engines to determine if cells are full etc to shut the engines down when you don't need them, but otherwise with proper cooling you will never need to put a conditional for overheating. You still can if you don't trust your setup skills or don't feel like watching them hit temperature and test your setup. This is usually the source of explosions.

 

[AlanEsh]

I blew up some engines while using AAs ... problem was the gold pipe i was using wasn't able to carry enough water to the end of the line. So yeah, Liquiducts to the rescue. I also use a structure pipe with a gate attached to a redstone energy cell to turn the bank of engines on/off.

 

[Maldroth]

I blew up some engines while using AAs ... problem was the gold pipe i was using wasn't able to carry enough water to the end of the line. So yeah, Liquiducts to the rescue. I also use a structure pipe with a gate attached to a redstone energy cell to turn the bank of engines on/off.

Yeah one I learned with gold pipe you need one line per side of AA, and saw the resulting snakeing of pipe everywhere I moved to Liquiducts and it simplified my setup so much. Honestly setting up BC power is so easy and cheap this way as the most expensive item is the refinery at a few diamonds for the gear. Usually there is an oil well somewhere close and a few buckets get you your initial network going. The best part about using fuel is that is last SO long. About 30ish minutes of 6MJ/t and if you shut that engine off half way through you keep the fraction of fuel in there.

I think magmatics only consume one bucket at a time so starting and stopping them you might lose some power, and that lasts no where near as long as fuel does.

 

[Bagman817]

Never understood the appeal of combustion engines. They're only 1MJ/t more powerful than Biogas engines, but with non-renewable fuel (well, bees, I guess) and the potential to explode. And Industrial Steam Engines outclass them completely. Also, any system that requires BC conductive pipes is a no-go for me. To be fair, I think you can use the gate controls with a cobblestone structure pipe, although I've not tried it myself.

 

[AlanEsh]

Never understood the appeal of combustion engines. They're only 1MJ/t more powerful than Biogas engines, but with non-renewable fuel (well, bees, I guess) and the potential to explode. And Industrial Steam Engines outclass them completely. Also, any system that requires BC conductive pipes is a no-go for me. To be fair, I think you can use the gate controls with a cobblestone structure pipe, although I've not tried it myself.

Why combustion engines...
- something different (been using steam boilers a lot lately)
- BC conductive pipes won't explode if they feed into a redstone power cell. In any case, I use redstone conduit, and one structure pipe+gate to send redstone signals to all engines when my power reservoirs are full. I don't bother with checking engine temperature -- my engines receive plenty of water and are all in one chunk with their cooling system.
- If your MJ power requirements are spotty, then on-demand combustion engines are not outclassed by ISEs. Sure it's 6MJ/t versus 8MJ/t, but I have to keep a boiler system fueled and hot 24/7, which isn't very efficient considering my energy usage patterns.

 

[Moezso]

Never understood the appeal of combustion engines. They're only 1MJ/t more powerful than Biogas engines, but with non-renewable fuel (well, bees, I guess) and the potential to explode. And Industrial Steam Engines outclass them completely. Also, any system that requires BC conductive pipes is a no-go for me. To be fair, I think you can use the gate controls with a cobblestone structure pipe, although I've not tried it myself.

Imo, the potential to explode IS the appeal. Safe is boring. Explosions are exciting!

 

[Zjarek_S]

Imo, the potential to explode IS the appeal. Safe is boring. Explosions are exciting!

It depends on explosion. Conductive pipes aren't exciting in 1.4.7. Fortunately they got fixed in 1.5.1 (wooden pipe don't request energy from an engine when it is not needed).

 

[Moezso]

TE

It depends on explosion. Conductive pipes aren't exciting in 1.4.7. Fortunately they got fixed in 1.5.1 (wooden pipe don't request energy from an engine when it is not needed).

TE stuff makes combustion engines a lot safer anyhow. Aqueous Accumulators provide plenty of water, Redstone Energy Conduits dissipate excess energy. I really only use conductive pipes in the very early game, before I advance to combustion engines anyway.

Now I'm going to go blow up a 36HP boiler, just because I've never seen one blow up. All I gotta do is heat it dry and then add water right?