Feeding charcoal into generators using Buildcraft

[imPlayin]

So, I am playing FTB Ultimate. It's really great fun to play this age-old pack. Not missing the many newer mods.

Without easy-peasy item transport mods like TE or EnderIO though I have to deal with the inconveniences of Buildcraft's Pipe System. So here's my problem: I want to build a treefarm that automatically makes charcoal and then power. However if I pull the charcoal out of my barrel into the four Generators, the Redstone Engine quickly overwhelms the demand of the generators eventually causing a huge mess. How can I solve this problem? Is there an early game way to only pull a limited amount (like every 3 seconds or so) out of the barrel to not overwhelm the generators or do I need to implement some sort of circulation system that will put the excess back into the barrel? Even then, is there a way to create "priorities" on buildcraft pipes like you can with newer item transport systems?

 

[SolManX]

Yes, you can loop your pipes back to barrel - but make sure you put an clay insertion pipe into the boiler so that it will always try to fill the boiler first. Worked for me in regrowth until I could get the mekanism pipes.

 

[malicious_bloke]

Didn't BC transport pipes have effectively infinite capacity back then?

I seem to remember my automated bee genocide setup ended up with a truly stupefying number of drones circulating in about 12 sections of pipe.

 

[Celestialphoenix]

As awesome as Buildcraft is- Try using the Redpower pneumatic tubes.

 

[DanteDarkstar]

I would simply use BC gates set to detect "empty inventory" in the generator and activate the redstone engines pulling charcoal out of closeby storage. It would result in short power generation interruption (time before charcoal is extracted and arrives at generator). Note that due to this delay several pieces would be drawn before the first one arrived, effectively meaning you have break in generation only once every few charcoal pieces, not after every single one. The longer the distance between charcoal storage and generator, the longer the delay but larger batches (and therefore longer time between delays).
If you make sure the generators are not in the same "phase", the breaks in generation would only cause small drop in power production every now and then. Single batbox (or higher) should even that out.