[Railcraft/Forestry] Powering a 3x3 Boiler

[Zerro]

So I just built a 3x3x4 solid, low pressure boiler. I want to make it run off of peat and I currently have one Peat Farm. I was wondering if 1 Peat Farm is enough to automatically power this boiler or should I downgrade to a 2x2 and if I do downgrade to a 2x2, would 1 Peat Farm be enough to auto power the 2x2?

Here's my boiler atm. I'm also helping it out with 3 Coke Ovens making Coal Coke:

thanks

Zerro0713

 

[whythisname]

A single Peat farm might be enough, but just barely I think. I've heard you can run an HP boiler from 3 farms though and I know from experience that you can easily run an LP boiler from 3 farms. So yeah, it might be enough, but I think you'll need at least 2 farms for an LP boiler.

You can relatively easily stack Peat farms though. Just keep a 1 block high gap in between and put your lowest farm 1 block below the Turbary. That way you can have 1 Turbary for 3 Peat farms.

For heating up I suggest making a supply of fuel before trying to get it up to max heat, because if you run out of fuel half way through you might've wasted a lot of fuel and not even reach max heat (while your heat then drops again). For my LP boiler I had 3 Peat farms running + a single regular chest full of Charcoal to get it up to max heat. So I advice at least a chest full of Charcoal to get it up and running, though Coal Coke is more powerful so you might be able to get away with ~10 stacks. Still, you should store those up and then toss them in all at once, because if you put them in 1 by 1 (like your Coke ovens would be doing) you might not be able to keep it burning constantly (which is basically what you want, a permanent fire blazing under your boiler).

 

[Celestialphoenix]

Check the Math notes on the railcraft wiki- you'll see that coal coke is worth 6400 and peat worth 1600 'heat' (fuel units).

Use the top one to work out your base fuel usage (fuel/tick)- about 7.92 H/t. (about 160 heat/second)

Charcoal/Peat is worth 1600 heat, so will last around 10.1 Seconds
Coal coke is worth 6400, so you'll get 40.4 seconds.
-A coke oven cycle takes 50 seconds to run.

Coal coke will eventually run out, so as long as you can average 1 peat every 10 seconds stick wit the 3x3. If you cant then upgrade your farms since you're already powering up.
-and keep a stockpile of fuel ready, these things are very fuel hungry on start up.

(this is also the reason I went nether diving and got myself a blaze shard- running a 36HP in survival no probs ,and got 2x36HP +36LP running off it in my test world with some left over)

 

[Zerro]

well she is already at 500c which is good. Good thing I had a surplus of charcoal from making creosote. I guess I could probably erect another Peat Farm above my current one. Would look a bit odd though

Thanks of course for the assistance.

 

[Zerro]

(I accidently posted this in the wrong thread)

Here is a video of my current setup. Hopefully it'll give a better understanding of what I'm doing:

So I am sort of running into a fuel/humus issue.


Setup:
4 tree farms
2 peat farms (stacked)
Wheat Farm
7 Peat Engines
7 Commercial Engines
3x3x4 LP Solid Boiler

When I only run the Peat engine, I generate enough Peat to make a surplus when fueling the boiler
When I turn on all the farms (4 trees + wheat), the Peat is unable to keep up. I have the 7 Peat Engines just so I can get ash to make compost for more Humus. I also notice that I am losing Humus during each cycle when all four tree farms are running.

Now I don't really need the tree farms anymore but I just use them for the sand to make more Bog Earth.

I was thinking maybe I could use all my excess wood to make charcoal as another source of power for the system. I could probably send them through my electric furnaces or the coke oven. Problem with the Coke Oven is that I have so much creosote that I don't really have any place to put it. Of course I could make more tanks but that costs iron too.

I'm also thinking maybe making a third Peat Farm to run all the tree farms, the wheat farm, and the boiler but then I may run into an issue with Bog Earth consumption

Any thoughts?

Edit: I came on this morning, after being disconnected for 8hrs and my Peat was all used up and the boiler was shut off. Now I thought if I WAS NOT connected to the server, then the chunk wouldn't be loaded and nothing would be running.

 

[Celestialphoenix]

When I turn on all the farms (4 trees + wheat), the Peat is unable to keep up. I have the 7 Peat Engines just so I can get ash to make compost for more Humus. I also notice that I am losing Humus during each cycle when all four tree farms are running.

You need the same amount of tree farms as you do peat farms, and they'll balance eachother for dirt/sand.
You can make humus/bog earth in a carpenter with mulch (wheat in a moistener).

As for power, you can run a biogas engine on milk, and use a deployer to auto-milk a cow, leaving all the peat for your boiler.

A hobbyist engine running on boiler steam will produce enough power to run two forestry farms 24/7- giving you higher efficiency than the peat engines.

Edit: I came on this morning, after being disconnected for 8hrs and my Peat was all used up and the boiler was shut off. Now I thought if I WAS NOT connected to the server, then the chunk wouldn't be loaded and nothing would be running.

A worldanchor or chickenchunks loader would help you out a lot here. keep your farms loaded too.

 

[Peppe]

(I accidently posted this in the wrong thread)

Here is a video of my current setup. Hopefully it'll give a better understanding of what I'm doing:

So I am sort of running into a fuel/humus issue.


Setup:
4 tree farms
2 peat farms (stacked)
Wheat Farm
7 Peat Engines
7 Commercial Engines
3x3x4 LP Solid Boiler

When I only run the Peat engine, I generate enough Peat to make a surplus when fueling the boiler
When I turn on all the farms (4 trees + wheat), the Peat is unable to keep up. I have the 7 Peat Engines just so I can get ash to make compost for more Humus. I also notice that I am losing Humus during each cycle when all four tree farms are running.

Now I don't really need the tree farms anymore but I just use them for the sand to make more Bog Earth.

I was thinking maybe I could use all my excess wood to make charcoal as another source of power for the system. I could probably send them through my electric furnaces or the coke oven. Problem with the Coke Oven is that I have so much creosote that I don't really have any place to put it. Of course I could make more tanks but that costs iron too.

I'm also thinking maybe making a third Peat Farm to run all the tree farms, the wheat farm, and the boiler but then I may run into an issue with Bog Earth consumption

Any thoughts?

Edit: I came on this morning, after being disconnected for 8hrs and my Peat was all used up and the boiler was shut off. Now I thought if I WAS NOT connected to the server, then the chunk wouldn't be loaded and nothing would be running.

If it is multiplayer how do you know someone didn't go by your area?

If your base is near spawn chunks can stay loaded at/near spawn.

Charcoal from coke ovens is probably too slow. There are EU or MJ based furnaces you can use to make charcoal easier/faster.

You might try to simplify. I'd probably run the peat farm off 1-2 peat engines and let the rest power the boiler - until you know you have a surplus. Use the boiler run the other farms.

Peat usually matures faster than a tree farm can supply sand, so you probably want to generate your own supply of sand for the peat. You can get sand from pulverizing cobblestone. You can get cobble for free from an extruder.

For extra humus you can autocraft sand into sandstone and pulverize that for a chance at niter = saltpeter = fertilizer. The peat farms should generate a surplus of dirt you can use to make the humus for the tree farms.

 

[Celestialphoenix]

For extra humus you can autocraft sand into sandstone and pulverize that for a chance at niter = saltpeter = fertilizer. The peat farms should generate a surplus of dirt you can use to make the humus for the tree farms.

Use a compressor to make sandstone...

 

[Peppe]

Use a compressor to make sandstone...

Why use power when you can do it for free?

 

[Stanekk]

Why use power when you can do it for free?

It takes one sand in a compressor and 4 sand in a crafting table. That could be a reaon, but i dont think it gonna ruin someone, though the power needed won't ruin someone who has to much cobble to handle it