Electrical Engine Advice

[Golrith]

Being new to Forestry, I'm overjoyed at the Electrical Engine, as I prefer generating all my power using IC2. BC energy seems a bit "odd" to me, even with the useful energy storage block and pipeworks.

Anyway, I see in the engine that the Electrical Engine can be upgraded, but I don't know how. Can anyone give some advice about it? Pro's, Con's, Items needed, etc, etc.

Also, is there a way to stop them overheating if the target machine isn't doing anything? Will the upgrades help in that regard?

I know when redpower becomes available, I can use a sequencer system to turn on and off the engine for periods of time to help cooldown without losing energy, but that feels a bit of a crude system.

TIA

 

[Poppycocks]

To apply the tube upgrades, you need to right click the engine with a Soldering Iron and place a small medium or large circuit board into the left slot. After that you can upgrade the engine with any of the tubes.

The wiki can tell you more about the effects: http://forestry.sengir.net/wiki/index.php?n=Machines.EngineTin

I haven't had a problem with the engines overheating, even if they've got nothing to do, I have never seen them get worse than yellow, as long as you don't chain them.

 

[Robert Southee]

In Forestry there are Electron Tubes(Copper, Iron, Tin and Bronze tubes) and Circuit Boards(Small, Medium and Large) used in upgrading the Electrical Engine. To craft these tubes you need to use a Thermionic Fabricator to craft a Thermionic Fabricator you will need:

• 4 x Gold Ingot
• 3 x Glass
• 1 x Sturdy Casing
• 1 x Chest

Once you have the Thermionic Fabricator you'll need some Glass in the slot on the left to get Molten Glass. You will then need to put the corresponding metal in the following formation in the Thermionic Fabricator the Redstone stays the same:

This will yield you 4 Electron Tubes. Next is the Circuit Boards these require a Carpenter to craft.
Carpenter:

Small Circuit Board Medium Circuit Board Large Circuit Board

Next you will need a Soldering Iron this is crafted in the Carpenter also.

Each Electron Tube has it's own upgrade properties listed below.
Tube_______Effect_________EU_________MJ
Copper______Choke(1)______-2 EU/t______-1 MJ/t
Tin_________Boost I(2)______+7 EU/t______+2 MJ/t
Bronze______Boost II(2)_____+15 EU/t______+4 MJ/t
Iron________Efficiency(1)____-1 EU/t______No Change

The numbers in the brackets are how many you can stack in one Circuit Board.

Once you have your Electron Tubes, Circuit Board, and Soldering Iron, you can now craft you upgrades.
First have your Soldering Iron in your hand and right click to open the GUI. You will have 4 slots in the middle to place your Electron Tubes, on the right is where you place your Circuit Board, once you've finished placing the Electron Tubes.

A Small Circuit Board will take 1 Electron Tube
A Medium Circuit Board will take 2 Electron Tubes
A Large Circuit Board will take 3 Electron Tubes

For example if you wanted a high output you could have:
Bronze Electron Tube
Bronze Electron Tube
Tin Electron Tube
with a Large Circuit Board, and you will have a total output of 12 MJ/t at the price of 43 EU/t.

You then place your Circuit Board in the left slot for the Electrical Engine and it will take on it's new upgrade. To remove the upgrade you need to use the Soldering Iron.

If you would prefer I could try and make a video and upload it to YouTube, there is a lot going on here so I may have mad it seem harder than what it really is.

 

[Golrith]

If you put a MFE to power the engine, and link the engine to a farm, once the farm has been built, and so only needs to monitor replanting seeds, the engine will overheat a number of times. Not a big deal it using solar power, but means less efficiency.

Wow, those upgrades look involved. So far, just been testing, "cheating" in items to see how they all work together, so not aware of material and construction processes.
Upgrades don't seem to be that important if using solar, due to the "free" energy you get from them. Definately they are advanced items I don't need to worry about yet

 

[zemerick]

Actually, only 1 of the tubes is an upgrade.

By default, the engine produces 2MJ/T at a cost of 6 EU/T. So, that's 3 EU per MJ.

Copper uses 2 less EU, but fully halves the output down to 1 MJ. So that's 4 EU per MJ. The purpose of this one is to not over generate your power. Conduit and Redstone Storage blocks help with this though, and you should use those anyways. If you really want to engineer an exact output though, and don't care about the lost EU, you can use 1 of these to get the exact output.

Tin requires 7 more EU to produce 2 more MJ. So, that's 13 EU for 4 MJ ( 3.25 EU per MJ )

Bronze requires 15 more EU to produce 4 more MJ. So, that's 21 EU for 6 MJ ( 3.5 EU per MJ )

The Purpose of tin and bronze is to just have a smaller engine room.

Iron requires 1 less EU and does not change the MJ. So, that's 5 EU for 2 MJ ( 2.5 EU per MJ )

This means Iron is the only one that has a better ratio than default. Everything else costs more than default.

So, what I would recommend doing is just make 1 small circuit board and 1 iron tube per engine, then just mass produce the engines to get what you want.

Also, I would argue that using solar is a good reason to use the above. That's 1 less solar panel per engine. Unless you are running your engines off an ultimate solar, it does make a difference.

 

[Sugar]

In Forestry there are Electro (...).

Awesome help. Thank you!!!


But, what about the other slot on the engine?

 

[potter]

The bottom slot is for external power (battery etc.) and what looks like the upper slot is just a symbol of a fan.