Thats quite abit of realistic complexity for a mod, not quite used to seeing that. For some reason i expected RP2 energy to transfer lossless. But the point seems to make quite some sense, i was taught the law of ohm in school as well. But thanks for the detailed explaination.. Altough i rarely, if ever use blutricity further beside a solar panel/thermophile attached to a retriever/alloy furnace.
Finding lots of Nikolite
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Eloraam is an electrical engineer, so it's not surprising that blutricity models real electrical principles, and also explains the use of "anodes" and "cathodes" in the logic gates.
Honestly I wish all the mods would use the volt/amp/watt/ohm system. Kids could be learning about real world things rather than just made up bs (EU/MJ etc) Things like vis, I get, because magic.
I acaully agree, i did had the law of ohm in school as well since i happend to be a engineer as well. And yes, im sure that many children will acually learn something form it, everyone should know about how electricity works. EU and MJ dont exactly are a prime example to learn from
A 16x16 grid of panels with a row of batboxes on one end powers 2 engines on our server and even has enough storage capacity in the batboxes to keep the engines running overnight. You don't need a circular configuration.
And how many kW are going through those engines? A single solar panel will run a blulectric engine too, it's just that the throughput is limited to what the single panel produces. Conversely, you could double up to 32x32 solar panels and you might not see even 1% more engine output if your energy network is already saturated.
Blulectric engines do not work like other engines or machines, which say "it will consume X amount per tick" or "it will produce X amount per tick". A blulectric engine will always consume all the power you can give it. Every last scrap, completely, no upper limit whatsoever*). And because it does a straight conversion of 1 kW -> 1 MJ/t, output is similarly uncapped. However, because of Ohm's Law, the energy network trying to move the power to the engine will eventually find itself an equilibrium point somewhere even if you supply an infinite amount of power, and thus automatically imposes a limit of how much can be moved to the engine for its consumption. In my case, the most I have ever been able to move to a blulectric engine is 25 kW, with an unreasonably expensive setup and facing very strongly diminshing returns. The circular solar assembly is comparatively cheap and does only 1 kW less.
Let's check your setup. If you have 16 batboxes fully charged, that's 4800 kJ. A Minecraft night is in the neighbourhood of 10 minutes long, making 600 seconds. And 1 W equals 1 J/s. How much are these two engines consuming to be able to make it through the night on one batbox charge? At most, 4,800,000 J / 2 / 600 s = 4,000 J/s = 4 kW each. And that's "at most", meaning they could very well be running slower.
Looks like your engines are running at less than17% (okay, 33%, since you are running day and night) of the potential ouput they could have if you were using circular solar assemblies with the exact same number of panels as you currently have. 
*) Possibly limited by its 25 kJ internal buffer, meaning that it might not be able to consume more than 40% of the internal buffer's contents per tick. But it's probably impossible to move that much energy into it that quickly anyway.
Blulectric engines do not work like other engines or machines, which say "it will consume X amount per tick" or "it will produce X amount per tick". A blulectric engine will always consume all the power you can give it. Every last scrap, completely, no upper limit whatsoever*). And because it does a straight conversion of 1 kW -> 1 MJ/t, output is similarly uncapped. However, because of Ohm's Law, the energy network trying to move the power to the engine will eventually find itself an equilibrium point somewhere even if you supply an infinite amount of power, and thus automatically imposes a limit of how much can be moved to the engine for its consumption. In my case, the most I have ever been able to move to a blulectric engine is 25 kW, with an unreasonably expensive setup and facing very strongly diminshing returns. The circular solar assembly is comparatively cheap and does only 1 kW less.
Let's check your setup. If you have 16 batboxes fully charged, that's 4800 kJ. A Minecraft night is in the neighbourhood of 10 minutes long, making 600 seconds. And 1 W equals 1 J/s. How much are these two engines consuming to be able to make it through the night on one batbox charge? At most, 4,800,000 J / 2 / 600 s = 4,000 J/s = 4 kW each. And that's "at most", meaning they could very well be running slower.
Looks like your engines are running at less than
*) Possibly limited by its 25 kJ internal buffer, meaning that it might not be able to consume more than 40% of the internal buffer's contents per tick. But it's probably impossible to move that much energy into it that quickly anyway.
of course you could always create arrays of your circular arrays by putting HV transformers in the middle and running centralized medium voltage cable to another transformer to an engine.
Just have to wait for the high voltage cable to create another layer of arrays
Just have to wait for the high voltage cable to create another layer of arrays
You don't gain much, Vovk, due to diminishing returns. Believe me, I tried it You simply can't get more than ~250 amps into the engine by any reasonable method, no matter what you connect, because the voltage inside the engine rises too much. The transformers and 10 kV cable are just an extra source of electric resistance at that point. Might as well have the engine right inside the panel array, and save yourself a whole lot of resources.
You simply can't get more than ~250 amps into the engine by any reasonable method, no matter what you connect, because the voltage inside the engine rises too much. The transformers and 10 kV cable are just an extra source of electric resistance at that point. Might as well have the engine right inside the panel array, and save yourself a whole lot of resources.I'm not running just a few Sorters, I'm building a Massive Solar array and plugging a bunch of Blulricity engines into it.
Numbers might be a little off. I've ran 400 Solar panels through about a Dozen BT-boxes, and was able to power 10 Engines.[DOUBLEPOST=1368734699][/DOUBLEPOST]
Lots and lots of Solar panels lol. it takes 4 1/2 stacks of Nikolite to make just 8 Solar panels.
As I stated above, a single solar panel will power an blulectric engine just fine. The engine will simply convert whatever power it gets, no matter if that is incredibly little or a metric ton. The conversion rate is 1 kW = 1 MJ/t. And since a solar panel outputs 2 A at a maximum voltage of 100 V, then its maximum power output is 2 * 100 = 200 W, or about a fifth of a kW. And thus a fifth of 1 MJ/t. Real numbers will be less because voltage will always be below 100 V (if it was 100, then the panel would stop generating power).
The question you need to ask yourself is whether your power is actually arriving at the engine, because moving the power is the true challenge. If you had 400 solar panels and 10 engines, then each engine should be receiving 80 A. or at least, all 10 engiens together should be consuming a total of 800 A. If any less current than that is arriving, then you've made a grave mistake in your setup (because it means some panels aren't generating power at all).
Now, once you have confirmed that the amps are all arriving, check the voltage of the engines. You want that voltage to be as high as possible. If your engines are sitting at 70 V with their 80 A, you'd have a power throughput of 5.6 kW and thus each engine produces 5.6 MJ/t, for a total of 56 for your whole array of 400 solar panels. But, if the engines were at 90 V, then out of the same 80 A you would get 7.2 kW, meaning the same 400 solars are generating 16 MJ/t more.
How do you raise the voltage? By feeding the engines more amps. In other words, remove some engines, so that the power is being divided up between less of them. With only 5 engines, each will have to handle 160 A, and with 4 engines, A amps each. That's already approaching the maximum the engines can pull in practical application, and should result in a nice and high voltage. However, you then need to check again if all the amps are still arriving. Since you are raising the voltage in the engines, you're reducing the potential difference between the engines and the solar panels, meaning it becomes harder to move the current to the engine. At some point (where exactly, depends entirely on your setup), you will start seeing solar panels ceasing to produce power because they are hitting 100 V and have no means to transport their power anymore. When this happens, you either need to adjust your solar array, or place down another engine again.
As you can see, designing an efficient RP2 solar array is far more involved than just plopping down a field of blocks and hooking up a cable
I'm surprised you guys think it's hard to run out of nikolite. It's not as though you have many options to make power with RP2, and all of them suck but require lots of nikolite. Getting enough power production and battery backup to have a steady and strong supply takes days of work and chests full of resources. I mean yeah, if you only ever use the RP2 stuff that doesn't take nikolite then you have heaps of it, but if you use any nikolite you need heaps+1.
I have tons of RP stuff and hundreds of stacks of the stuff. So yeah.. its hard to run out. What do you do, eat it?
You'll get acute nikolite poisoning and all the symptoms which go along with it (neurological degradation, liver failure, nausea, blue Kayser-Fleschier Rings, and, 5 days later, death), but yes, you can eat it.
I don't get all this voltage amper stuff (watts I think is the... ammount if you can call it that), I'm just too stupid, I rather have my trusty MJ and not IRL slapped into minecraft.