I've been thinking of setting up an MJ power system in my base, I have'nt decided to use lava or a steam boiler yet, however I was wondering what is better for transmitting and controlling the MJ power, gold conductive pipes with BC gates controlling the flow or TE Redstone Energy Conduit's. I like the control BC pipes and gates give for power flow however I've read that the pipes arent too efficient compared to the conduits. Do the conduits have a system like the gates that can turn off an engine when it dosent need to be used or can BC gates be used on/with the conduits?
MJ power transfer and control
- Thread starter Lonewolf187
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Cobble pipes lose 1% of their MJ per pipe and explode when filled with a relatively small amount of MJ with nowhere to go. Cobble pipes cannot form loops without terrible things happening.
Gold pipes lose 0.01% of their MJ per pipe and explode when filled with 1000 MJ each. Gold pipes cannot form loops without terrible things happening.
Conduits lose 5% of their MJ. Period. Conduits do not explode. Conduits can store 1000 MJ each. Conduits can form loops and meshes.
Redstone energy cells do not output energy into full conduits. Structure pipes with gates can read the energy levels of redstone energy cells.
Conduits become more efficient when your system requires more than 50 blocks to connect every machine. In order to have efficient shutoff of engines when your energy is full, feed all engine energy directly into redstone energy cells using golden conductive pipes. Run gates from the cells to the engines to shut off at max energy. Run all base power off output of energy cells with conduits.
Gold pipes lose 0.01% of their MJ per pipe and explode when filled with 1000 MJ each. Gold pipes cannot form loops without terrible things happening.
Conduits lose 5% of their MJ. Period. Conduits do not explode. Conduits can store 1000 MJ each. Conduits can form loops and meshes.
Redstone energy cells do not output energy into full conduits. Structure pipes with gates can read the energy levels of redstone energy cells.
Conduits become more efficient when your system requires more than 50 blocks to connect every machine. In order to have efficient shutoff of engines when your energy is full, feed all engine energy directly into redstone energy cells using golden conductive pipes. Run gates from the cells to the engines to shut off at max energy. Run all base power off output of energy cells with conduits.
Thanks for the idea Vovk, I'll try to keep that in mind using the redstone energy cells. I do have a question, can non-TE machines use energy from TE conduits like the BC Lasers for the assembly table or the Rock Crusher from Railcraft?
There sems to be a bug with them anyway. Even if you have no loops in your system, gold pipes seem to sometimes build up power and explode for no reason(There are threads on this subject).
So basically, if you want to avoid any pipes exploding you have to use conduits.(like you mentioned)
It's not a bug. If the machines they are connected to fill up, then the power no longer has anywhere else to go. Once you let 1000 build up in a single pipe you get an explosion. In prior versions, extra power was just wasted. Now the pipe explodes. This is an intentional change to push people towards using gates.
Interesting. It just hasn't been covered in any of the threads I've lurked on this issue. Could you clarify what kind of gate you mean, because this issue has driven me nuts for a while.
Do you mean redstone signals that cut off the engines for a while?
You will need an iron AND/OR gate or higher on the energy storage device in order to send a red pipe wire signal to a basic gate on the engine. The configuration should be "If space in energy storage, red pipe signal on" for the gate on the storage cell. Then run a red wire to a basic gate on an engine with "If red pipe wire then redstone signal". This will automatically turn your engine off when the storage is full.
Like I said, this was an intentional change. The devs of buildcraft want you to reach assembly table tech before you fully automate your energy usage.
Like I said, this was an intentional change. The devs of buildcraft want you to reach assembly table tech before you fully automate your energy usage.
That clears up a lot of questions, thanks a lot.
It seems kind of daunting, especially the cost and the setup, but I guess it's either that or resort to using conduits and moving engines closer to the areas needed. At least the liquid pipes won't blow up or explode.
@Vovk except when you have constant drain on this energy cell, it may not always turn the engines off. It will work 90 % of the time, but sometimes it will just get stuck. I just use 2 energy cells with simple RS latch, controlling which cell is emitting energy. If a cell is empty latch is flipped and it begins draining from the other cell and if any cell is full engines are deactivated (energy full -> red pipe wire, red pipe wire off -> redstone signal). It is also helpful when engine has startup cost, which many engines have, because it will always charge at least one full energy cell.
I am somewhat confused, or maybe it's just that it's 6 AM and I haven't slept yet.
If you have constant drain on an energy cell, should the engines not be turned on? If you have more engines than can charge the 100 MJ/t input you should always separate them out by cell.
If you have constant drain on an energy cell, should the engines not be turned on? If you have more engines than can charge the 100 MJ/t input you should always separate them out by cell.
I was talking about situation where you have for example some farms, machines etc. which draw less energy than your system produce (with combustion engines it is very likely). If you are connecting to the energy cell using this gate setup and golden pipes, the pipes can blow up with energy cell having constantly for example 599 970 MJ. This could destroy transfer of information about engines overheating, which in combination with inefficient cooling system can cause huge explosion. Unfortunately I don't have pictures.
This is a case of engineering. Try to balance source and drain. Conduits together with TE steam or magmatic engines help you in your balancing thanks to their "intelligence". For usage with other engines and/or with pipes you have to implement that intelligence on your own. Know the size of your constant drain (e.g. farms) and let that amount come in permanently. For drain on demand (e.g. pulverizer or carpenter), add a correctly dimensioned switchable power source, which auto switches off, if the machines have finished. As long as chunk loading issues don't interfere, no BOOM should happen.
What I do is use conduits as my main distribution funnel, and then place a redstone energy cell at machines that are not coded to be power friendly (most forestry machines, rolling machine) to limit the power output and then use a wood/gold conductive pipe from the cell to the energy sucking devices with "has work" gates to turn off the energy cell.
In my 1.4.2 Beta A pack items like the carpenter and rolling machine don't seem to use power unless they're actually being used. A RE cell just stays at the power level even if those are connected. However; if you use a machine it empties the connected conduit first (each stores 1000MJ) so after it's done those get recharges so that explains why you see a drain on your RE cell right after your carpenter finishes creating items.
Also; aside from the other benefits the conduits have an additional benefit: they don't break if someone sneezes near them
Also; aside from the other benefits the conduits have an additional benefit: they don't break if someone sneezes near them
In my 1.4.2 Beta A pack items like the carpenter and rolling machine don't seem to use power unless they're actually being used. A RE cell just stays at the power level even if those are connected. However; if you use a machine it empties the connected conduit first (each stores 1000MJ) so after it's done those get recharges so that explains why you see a drain on your RE cell right after your carpenter finishes creating items.
Also; aside from the other benefits the conduits have an additional benefit: they don't break if someone sneezes near them
I've noticed they made pipes much harder to break... It is now actually possible to only break 1 at a time in 1.4.6