Need more Mj storage.

[Jeff Fisher]

Like the title says I need more MJ storage lol.. Theres tons of options to store EU for but Mj the only one I know about is Redstone energy cell..

Just using a single LP boiler running on peat I make more MJ then I need (unless im running my quarry which I dont always run as I am drowning in ore). I would like to be able to store all the extra Mj I produce without having to make 100's of redstone energy cells. Maybe Kinglemming could make a upgraded version in the future to store more ?

 

[Guswut]

You could use MJ to convert netherrack into lava, and then store that lava until you need to use the power (either as EU in a thermal generator/geothermal generator, or MJ in a magmatic engine).

Otherwise, build two dozen redstone energy cells, make a system that recharges them (crescent hammer engineering turtle to the rescue), and you should be fairly well off I'd say. Even if it does cost a bunch of redstone and the like.

 

[Magic Oreo]

Like Guswut said, lava is probably the easiest way to store it in mass (iron tank).

Having more versions of the redstone energy cell would be awesome, but the limited storage might be intentional (?).

 

[Jeff Fisher]

wouldnt it be a pain in the rear to convert Mj into lava.. You would have to go mine nether rack or use a wuary which I would assume would use more energy then its worth.

 

[Vovk]

the limited storage does seem intentional. Instead of using a little bit of MJ production to charge something for large bursts, I believe you should build you MJ production alongside your machines so that you can sustainably power them all when you need to and so that you can shut them off when you're done.

This seems to go against the point of boilers - but the point of boilers seems to be constant sustainable MJ powered automation where your assembly lines never shut off.


In a challenge, I've decided to forego boilers and run a bank of combustion engines from fuel. I have accumulated 36 engines on a bundled cable connected to several levers. Using the levers I can turn on any combination of engines 3 at a time up to the max of 36. When I am powering quarries I turn all 36 on at once and tesseract the energy to 3 simultaneously. When I am not powering quarries, I usually have 3 turned on just to run the pulverizers and such OR I have 12 turned on to run my assembly table or even 21 turned on to run my maga crucibles to melt lava.

The system works pretty well, and with pumps+tesseracts alongside railcraft tanks, fuel is plentiful and used efficiently. At max output, I use 36 buckets of fuel every 83 minutes and I am currently storing over 1000 buckets. I don't have to worry about constantly feeding a boiler and I can shut off the system when it's not in use.

You can kind of see the system here at 6:06

Ignore the rest of the video, it's something our admin made about a 1 week old player item duping. I would actually log on and take screenshots except the server is down for upgrades right now and I don't know if I'd be able to log on in the next day or so.


This way, MJ is stored in my fuel and not stored in the space inefficient redstone energy cells. I can store 600,000,000 MJ in my railcraft tank instead of using 1000 redstone energy cells.

I'd have to say though, if you are running constant lava melting, or want to have quarries running 100% of the time on say an automated frame machine, or are doing any other heavy automation heavy mj use then the boiler is the best tool for the job. At that point you should use a boiler of size closest to what you need to power everything 100% of the time and keep it running off a sustainable fuel source.

 

[Hydra]

wouldnt it be a pain in the rear to convert Mj into lava.. You would have to go mine nether rack or use a wuary which I would assume would use more energy then its worth.

An ignious extruder provides more cobble than the magma crucible can smelt and they can easily be stacked. So no, I do this and it's not a pain in the rear at all.

 

[Guswut]

wouldnt it be a pain in the rear to convert Mj into lava.. You would have to go mine nether rack or use a wuary which I would assume would use more energy then its worth.

A single 64x64 quarry in the nether will likely get you so much netherrack that you will most likely never need another quarry in the nether. In fact, I should go set up my quarry in the nether over some soul sand, so I never need to even think about soul sand ever again.

~~~

Besides that, though, really now the "best" way to store MJ is in the redstone cells. Which means a lot of resources, but if you want to store MJs, you need to deal with such factors (or make a massive lava pit/tank).

Although perhaps the most logical way to store MJs is in action, such as running a quarry faster if you can support it, or running more things in that regard. Maybe set up a boiler so you can make steam and run a steam turbine, as well.

 

[Celestialphoenix]

I'll agree with guswut here- lava is the best "cheap" option.

RS energy cell holds 600kMJ, buildcraft/RC tanks hold 320kMJ/block or lava cells/capsules in barrels for 81920kMJ/block.​

​

The only advantage is the cell can pump out crazy amounts of energy if you need it, and provide it on demand. (instead of a slow supply with engine warmup)

So its best to fill a cell or 2, and store the rest in lava tanks.​

​

(If you're not going to use the energy- lava has some very awesome uses if you have Gregtech installed)

 

[nethervvoid]

Hmm but turning off the boiler seems to never be an option, correct? Which means a lava battery would be fairly useless? In my systems the 'battery' allows me to turn off the engines when they're not needed, which is something I like to do as I live on a server. I wonder if you had a large enough lava battery if you could just use a LP boiler, which I think can be turned on an off much easier?

 

[Guswut]

Hmm but turning off the boiler seems to never be an option, correct? Which means a lava battery would be fairly useless? In my systems the 'battery' allows me to turn off the engines when they're not needed, which is something I like to do as I live on a server. I wonder if you had a large enough lava battery if you could just use a LP boiler, which I think can be turned on an off much easier?

If you are going to make steam boilers, a 36HP (thirty six blocks [four layers of nine by nine] made of steel [high pressure, versus iron which is low pressure]) will allow you to run two steam turbines making 100eu/t each, as well as two industrial engines or four commercial engines (16mj/t worth of power, in case I mixed those up). This should be enough MJ/t to run a few simple things, and with enough boilers it will add up to a lot of spare MJ/t. And 200eu/t can then be used in matter fabrication, or stored in an EU storing system.

To retrieve MJ, you'd use EU in an electrical engine. The conversion rate is not very good, but that does not matter as you will be simplifying the system and will likely have loads of EU to spare. You could also set up a redstone cell turtle solution to drink up some of the MJ produced off of the boilers (this is what I do) and then have loads of excess EU as well as a small MJ storage buffer.

 

[nethervvoid]

Well my current set up is an MV solar array to MFSU to 4 electric engines upgraded to put out 6mj/tick each. This flows into an energy cell.

I'd like to convert this system away from solars and electric engines to something with a little more personality. How long does it take to bring LP and HP boilers from cold to producing at 80 or so percent?

 

[Guswut]

Well my current set up is an MV solar array to MFSU to 4 electric engines upgraded to put out 6mj/tick each. This flows into an energy cell.

I'd like to convert this system away from solars and electric engines to something with a little more personality. How long does it take to bring LP and HP boilers from cold to producing at 80 or so percent?

A 36HP boiler will go from off to entirely warmed up in about four hours or so when fed constantly (liquid fueled, biofuel, in case that matters at all). I assume an LP would take half the time (and produce half of the energy. The only difference between the two is the amount of space they take up as, at full power, they produce the same amount of energy for the same amount of fuel produced).

I believe it is somewhere around one thousand stacks of planks to fuel a solid fuel boiler, although I may have misplaced a zero there. What I'd suggest, if you cannot get a good answer, would be loading a creative world and testing for yourself. Just make sure to keep them properly watered at ALL times.

 

[nethervvoid]

Hmm so it sounds like since I want to use a lava battery to drive my systems and am only using the boiler when the lava battery is drained past a certain level (not sure how I will determine this hah!) then LP is probably a better option for me I think...

 

[Mero]

wouldnt it be a pain in the rear to convert Mj into lava.. You would have to go mine nether rack or use a wuary which I would assume would use more energy then its worth.

Enderchest, Mining turtle, chunk loader.

Go to the top bedrock level in the nether and set the turtle to excavate something like 9. Just remember that the bigger the area the longer it takes so depending on how long you will be on you might need to keep it fairly small.
Use a filter to pull the netherrack out of the enderchest and deposit it in a barrel.
You shouldn't even have to do this continually

 

[Guswut]

Hmm so it sounds like since I want to use a lava battery to drive my systems and am only using the boiler when the lava battery is drained past a certain level (not sure how I will determine this hah!) then LP is probably a better option for me I think...

If you are ever going to allow the boiler to lose heat, you will want LP. Otherwise HP is best if you can make the iron. Also, steam turbines require 99 steel every two to three days (real life days) of constant power production as the steam turbine blades wear out. That is something to consider.

 

[slay_mithos]

Why store the energy in form of Lava when you could just as well store the steam directly into a big tank?

Oh, because it takes more space, true, but you can then decide between EU and MJ, without the need to farm the nether for the red cobble.

 

[Guswut]

Why store the energy in form of Lava when you could just as well store the steam directly into a big tank?

Oh, because it takes more space, true, but you can then decide between EU and MJ, without the need to farm the nether for the red cobble.

That isn't a bad idea, at all, actually. Although I'm currently living in a volcano so I've got tanks of lava all over the place to add to the decor. Perhaps I should build a floating castle/cloud level base, and use steam tanks as my "cloud storage". This could work.

 

[nethervvoid]

Why store the energy in form of Lava when you could just as well store the steam directly into a big tank?

Oh, because it takes more space, true, but you can then decide between EU and MJ, without the need to farm the nether for the red cobble.

I guess this should be rather obvious. lol Although I'm wondering how much more compact the lava system would be. I'll have to do some calculations...

 

[KirinDave]

Hah, I hadn't though about the energy density of steam as a storage medium... Storing steam is a really interesting call for a massive iron tank. Of course, it's really nice to have 5-10 redstone energy cells tapped on your power network ready to bleed out power if you're gone for a few days and your boilers go cold. Especially if the processes that power the fuel generation were looped into said power network and not independent.

I'm not in a position to check the figures so I'll just ask: how many minutes can the various iron tank sizes run a single industrial steam engine?

 

[jnads]

An ignious extruder provides more cobble than the magma crucible can smelt and they can easily be stacked. So no, I do this and it's not a pain in the rear at all.

That is the set-up I use. Lava takes 20,000 MJ to make. And 1 bucket gives 18,000 MJ in a Magmatic Engine. So 90% conversion efficiency. Not really any worse than 2 Redstone Energy Cells. But yeah, you don't need to use Netherrack in a Magma Crucible. You can just use cobblestone more easily.

But yeah, a 7x7x6 railcraft tank full of lava stores 90 Million MJ.


With that much, you can pretty much run down the lava tank until it's 50% full, using BC Gates, then turn on your steam boiler to make more.

The nice thing about Lava, is it can run in a variety of engines / generators. And you can always siphon some off into a Portable Tank as a "battery" of sorts, for powering Quarries and the like. Much cheaper to make a Portable Tank than a new Redstone Cell. A tank stores 8 buckets, so that's about 160,000 MJ per tank, which requires 1 Tin, 4 Lead, and 4 Obsidian.