Induction furnace.

[ExRayz]

I have a couple of thermal generators power the basic machines in FTB (electric furnace, extractor, compressor, macerator). I want to upgrade all of them and keep them heated up to 100% all the time. I looked on the wiki about this and it said they use 1 EU/t in order to stay heated up and I was thinking of making an advanced solar panel and connect it to all of the machines. Are the machines going to use 1 EU/t form the solar panel and when they're being used they're gonna get the rest of the EU form the thermal generators? Or are they going to get all their EU just form the thermal?

 

[KyoNeko66]

I aint a expert on the IC2 energy system, but i am fairly certain that IC2 machins draw from the closest source, so you would have to place the solar panel correctly. Beside that, a advanced solar power makes only 8 eu/t if im correct durning the day, and just 1eu/t at night. While it has a internal buffer, you have to take into accound the night as well. Most likely the thermals will flash on and off durning the night to keep the machines powered when the solar power runs out of energy. If you try to pinch as much power out of little eu generation. I would say get a storage unit. Batbox at least. but preverably MFE or MFSU with transformers. And use standard machines with overclockers. Yes they draw more power. But they dont use power when there off and let you store up the power instead.

 

[Omicron]

First, an advanced panel alone won't suffice. While IC2's induction furnace uses only 1 EU/t to keep itself heated, the other upgraded machines come from a separate mod and behave differently. They need at least 3 EU/t each, so you're looking at 10 EU/t total minimum.

As for where the energy comes from, it would probably be split. If you want to make absolutely sure that the thermals only work if the solars can't keep up, you'll have to rig a little control mechanism.

- Hook the solars and thermal generators up to a batbox
- Hook the batbox up to the advanced machines
- Configure the batbox to "output redstone signal when empty"
- Lead a redstone wire to a splitter cable in the connection between the thermals and the batbox
- Make sure the splitter cable is open (not transmitting) while the batbox is not empty

As a result, when the batbox runs empty it will emit a signal and close the splitter cable, connecting the thermal generators and letting them supply power. In all other cases, only the solars will do the work. You will also have the benefit of the 40,000 EU in the batbox as a short-term buffer, in addition to the buffer of the advanced solars. With that setup and two advanced solars, you'll probably never see the termal generators needed at all except for very large batches of induction furnace uses early in the morning.