Gate help

[Cougar281]

I'm trying to figure out these gates and I think I've gotten somewhere.... but I'm back to being stuck.

I'm trying to set gates up to automatically turn my electrical engines on to pump BC energy into a Redstone Energy Cell when it needs it. The problem is near as I can tell, the options are 'No Energy", "Energy Stored", "Can Store Energy" and "Full Energy". The problem is with "No Energy", the engines will be off until the cell is EMPTY, and then as soon as it has any BC energy, will turn the power off so the cell will never fill up. With energy stored, essentially it would never shut off unless the cell magically depleted all it's energy at once. With "Can Store Energy", it would shut off when full, but as soon as even 1MJ was drained from the cell, it would turn the engines on, so they'd be cycling on and off like crazy, and with a relative trickle of MJ being used, enough of this would cause a buildup in the pipes and BOOM, and obviously, for the purposes of this exercise, "Full Energy" is useless... I think...

What I'd LIKE is something to the effect of turn red wire on when low (Since I don't see 'low' or a percent, empty would work), and turn off when full so that the cell would drain normally either to a point (say 25% for example) or to empty, then turn the pipe wire on, leaving it on until the cell hits full and then turning it off, staying off until either that percentage or empty is hit again.

Is this possible or is it a "pipe dream"?

 

[Abdiel]

It is indeed possible. Use a golden OR gate. Put a red wire on the pipe, and set the following conditions:

Red pipe signal off --> Redstone signal
Redstone signal off --> Red pipe signal
No energy --> Redstone signal
Full energy --> Red pipe signal

Connect the redstone signal to an engine. Also make sure that there is a solid block adjacent to the pipe, so that it will receive the redstone signal it emits.

The gate is acting as an RS latch through the first two conditions. It is set when the cell is empty, and reset when it gets full.

If you want to have the pipe signal active when the cell needs charging (instead of redstone), just switch the last two conditions.

 

[Cougar281]

That worked great, Thanks!

It's not really a huge deal if it's not possible, but is there a way to make that setup work with sending the signal to gates at the engines via pipe wire instead of red alloy wire?

How the heck to you guys figure this stuff out? Most would say I'm reasonably smart, but a lot of the things I see people doing with Minecraft, Tekkit and Feed The Beast blows my mind!

It is indeed possible. Use a golden OR gate. Put a red wire on the pipe, and set the following conditions:

Red pipe signal off --> Redstone signal
Redstone signal off --> Red pipe signal
No energy --> Redstone signal
Full energy --> Red pipe signal

Connect the redstone signal to an engine. Also make sure that there is a solid block adjacent to the pipe, so that it will receive the redstone signal it emits.

The gate is acting as an RS latch through the first two conditions. It is set when the cell is empty, and reset when it gets full.

If you want to have the pipe signal active when the cell needs charging (instead of redstone), just switch the last two conditions.

 

[slay_mithos]

Well, some of us, if not most, started very early with those mods, so we had time to test various things as they came to us.
Not saying that we know all the mods, but IC2 and BC are known enough to want to even try other routes sometimes (TE and others).

Mostly learning through videos, experiment and lots of mistakes.

 

[Abdiel]

It's not really a huge deal if it's not possible, but is there a way to make that setup work with sending the signal to gates at the engines via pipe wire instead of red alloy wire?

As I wrote at the end of my post,

If you want to have the pipe signal active when the cell needs charging (instead of redstone), just switch the last two conditions.

I.e. No energy --> pipe signal, full energy --> redstone signal. Note that you will still need a solid block adjacent to the gate. It needs to be able to send redstone signal to itself.

Also one thing I forgot to mention, make sure to check your cell's redstone control settings. I'm not sure if the gate interacts with it, but if it does it will turn it off with the defaults.

How the heck to you guys figure this stuff out?

This particular one actually came to me when I was trying to do something way too complicated with a single gate, and created the RS latch by accident. Then I realized how it could be used to compact energy management systems. (The solution with a normal redstone RS latch and two redstone signals triggering it when storage is full/empty is "widely known" from IC2.)

 

[Peppe]

For steam engines I like to just put an iron or gate at the engine or a block of engines. Set it to emit redstone when the engine is green or blue. If needed carry the signal to a bank of engines.

 

[MilConDoin]

While on the topic of gate help:
Is there any mod which adds a few triggers for IC2 energy storage?
if energy stored < 25%
if energy stored < 50%
if energy stored < 75%

 

[Cougar281]

Sorry, somehow I missed that part

Now all we need is a way to send BC power wirelessly such as with Power Teleport pipes or something similar and we'd be all set

As I wrote at the end of my post

 

[Cougar281]

Well, it seems to be 'sorta' working..... When I switched it around to use pipe wire, every time it filled the Redstone cell, the engines wouldn't shut off fast enough and it ended up melting half the pipes... Switched back to using red allow wire and now every time it melts one pipe between the engines and the cell... Any thoughts?

 

[Abdiel]

Well, it seems to be 'sorta' working..... When I switched it around to use pipe wire, every time it filled the Redstone cell, the engines wouldn't shut off fast enough and it ended up melting half the pipes... Switched back to using red allow wire and now every time it melts one pipe between the engines and the cell... Any thoughts?

The engines should shut off almost instantly. Is that not the case?

How many engines do you have running the thing? Are you sure you're not running into chunk loading problems of some kind?

 

[Cougar281]

simple enough to drop a redstone energy cell into an ender chest.

What does that have to do with the problem at hand?

The engines should shut off almost instantly. Is that not the case?

How many engines do you have running the thing? Are you sure you're not running into chunk loading problems of some kind?

I've got 6 upgraded electrical engines.... It seems like sometimes it shuts off and just melts one pipe due to buildup, and other times it seems like the gate isn't shutting the RS signal down when the cell hits fill so the engines keep going and melt all the pipes.

I doubt it's a chunk issue as I have a chunkloader that's got the entire area loaded.

 

[Poppycocks]

What does that have to do with the problem at hand?



I've got 6 upgraded electrical engines.... It seems like sometimes it shuts off and just melts one pipe due to buildup, and other times it seems like the gate isn't shutting the RS signal down when the cell hits fill so the engines keep going and melt all the pipes.

I doubt it's a chunk issue as I have a chunkloader that's got the entire area loaded.

You might wanna try and use conduits instead.

 

[MrZwij]

I'd use Redstone Energy Conduits instead of pipe. You'd have to attach the gate to a different kind of pipe (structural pipe for instance) and run the red alloy to transmit the signal.

Something to consider if you want constant availability of MJs but also want to supply power only as needed: Use Abdiel's system, but with two energy cells. The first one would charge the second one and act as a buffer. When the first one runs out, it begins charging, but there is still plenty of power available from the second one. You'd definitely need redstone energy conduit in that case because it's directional.

 

[Cougar281]

You might wanna try and use conduits instead.

Well, I was, but the problem is gates don't work with them so the engines would be constantly running, sucking down EU when they don't need to be...

 

[Poppycocks]

Well, I was, but the problem is gates don't work with them so the engines would be constantly running, sucking down EU when they don't need to be...

Yes and no, what MrZwij said.

It's a well known trick by now, you can have the gate on a structural pipe touching any side of the cell. It will work regardless of if it's actually connected or not.

Check out the screenshot in this post and you'll understand.

 

[Ldog]

Well, I was, but the problem is gates don't work with them so the engines would be constantly running, sucking down EU when they don't need to be...

You'd have to run a line of structural pipe alongside with the pipe wire. A hassle but it's doable.

Awesome tip on the gate Abdiel, I was trying to figure out how to do exactly that.

 

[Poppycocks]

You'd have to run a line of structural pipe alongside with the pipe wire. A hassle but it's doable.

Awesome tip on the gate Abdiel, I was trying to figure out how to do exactly that.

Actually no, regular redstone connects to gates, RP wires do as well.

 

[Ldog]

Actually no, regular redstone connects to gates, RP wires do as well.

I meant if you want to use pipe wire and you use TE conduits and liquiducts instead of pipes.
There are times when a redstone signal is going to be a problem.

 

[Poppycocks]

I meant if you want to use pipe wire and you use TE conduits and liquiducts instead of pipes.
There are times when a redstone signal is going to be a problem.

Well, you'll need an extra block of space, but hey, no biggie, eh?
Besides, you can hide the gate and the wires under the floor.

 

[Cougar281]

I think I sort of figured out what's going on with it not shutting off. I switched back to conduits and a structure pipe with the gate on the cell. It seems that sometimes the cell never actually fills up. It will sit bouncing around just a shade below 600,000MJ, but never actually hitting 600,000. As soon as I broke out one of the conduits on the sending side, it filled up and shut the engines down as intended. The odd thing is the engines are making a lot more energy than it being drawn out, so I don't get why it never actually touches full.