Redstone Energy Cell recharging question

[zilvarwolf]

I was trying to setup a power operation using a redstone battery to power everything (output at 5 MJ/t). The system was creating biomass (rapidly), so I hooked up two biomass engines to the battery using redstone conduit. Now, my understanding is that a biogas engine running on biomass will generate 5 MJ/t, so I figured that if I was running two of them I'd push more into the system than I was outputting.

Didn't happen. Two engines didn't have any more effect than one.

Same result with golden conductive pipes.

Anyone have any suggestions on how to setup something like that? I eventually pulled the battery out of the system and I'm running it on just the biogas engines, but now I'm curious and a little frustrated.

 

[Sara Dr In te House]

After charging the forestry machines (they have an internal energy buffer AFAIK) and the power being stored in the conduits, you should then start to see power getting added. It worked that way in my Magic World. I had a similar setup and I was able to charge my cell.

 

[EternalDensity]

In my Magic World I used Te quite a bit before getting into much Forestry, so I was rather spoiled by TE's excellent GUI. I really wish I could see how much power Forestry machines are actually using and how much power is in the buffer. This is because I placed a fully charged energy cell beside an arboreum and logger, and returned a while later to find the cell empty and very little had been achieved. I'm used to TE machines only using power when they have work to do, while the Forestry machines seemed to eat it continually regardless. Though without being able to see the power buffers I don't actually know whether the power was wasted or went into a buffer.

 

[Larroke]

Forestry machines are notorious for sucking any power in the system away. Limiting output should slow them down (factor the min power they require from wiki, where available, and add up all the machines on the system). MJ/t does consume more power then most would think. at 9MJ/t my quarry drains a cell in less then 50 minutes once charged, so limiting output to 5 would mean the cell would be drained in less then 2 hours.

You appear to have outputs on the conduits right, but the question is.. does it limit the power per face, or overall? If it limits it to each face, that may explain why you aren't gaining as its giving the forestry machines 5mj out of each ouput.

 

[zilvarwolf]

I hold static with one engine, and get exactly the same results with 2. If I disconnect the engines and let a buffer build up they'll dump it into the cell, but as soon as the buffer fills, the result is the same. 5 in, and 5 out.

 

[netmc]

Try reconnecting the lines so you only have 1 input and 1 output. With two faces connected, I believe the output would be 5MJ per face, or 10 total if it was needed. The need would depend on what machines you have connected to the conduit line. Conduits are much better at spreading out the energy, so you could be putting out not quite enough, and the machines would be slightly more efficient with less energy. Also, update to the latest version of forestry. (version 1.6.3.0 as of this writing.) The latest versions fixes some energy usage bugs.

If you have a thermionic fabricator connected to the line, disconnect it and see what happens. I haven't looked at the code, but the thermionic fabricator doesn't seem to have quite a linear usage. The more energy you put in, the higher the temperature, and the more energy required to maintain the temp. It's quite possible the TF is using all the "surplus" energy.

 

[zilvarwolf]

I reconnected the system. Looks like you were right and I was mistaken in what was going on. Output seems to be per-face, so I'm actually outputting 10MJ/t right now and the two engines are just keeping up.

 

[MilConDoin]

In my Magic World I used Te quite a bit before getting into much Forestry, so I was rather spoiled by TE's excellent GUI. I really wish I could see how much power Forestry machines are actually using and how much power is in the buffer. This is because I placed a fully charged energy cell beside an arboreum and logger, and returned a while later to find the cell empty and very little had been achieved. I'm used to TE machines only using power when they have work to do, while the Forestry machines seemed to eat it continually regardless. Though without being able to see the power buffers I don't actually know whether the power was wasted or went into a buffer.

The arboreum and logger need their energy continously, because they need power to search in their workspace, if they have actual work to do.

 

[mfgamesys]

I saw this and thought I should chime in I have tested how much a fermenter at one time can use so much mj/t you might not believe me but I can say that with a high pressure steam boiler with 18 industrial engines 4 sucked all my energy (18 industrial steam engines = 144mj/t). So I looked at how much one could use at one time and you can tell sometimes how much power is being drawn from the cell be how much less 500k it is using per tick and I found that the fermenter used about 40mj/t as I could process all my biomass with just one. It was tough to use as water in gold pipes(hope liquid ducts work better) was not fast enough to supply it so i used a set limit of 15mj/t with two fermenters on seperate water lines to not use so much as the power cells can be limited to how much they use via redstone control so I could turn them off on the cell.

 

[Vvector]

The arboreum and logger need their energy continously, because they need power to search in their workspace, if they have actual work to do.

Each of those machines use 1MJ/t. The Redstone Energy Cell is perfect for limiting the output.

 

[netmc]

When running the logger and arboretum, you can set 1MJ total for both machines. It won't run quite as fast, but fast enough to keep up with natural tree growth. If you use catalysts, you will of course need more energy. If you have a rubber tree farm, you actually want to keep the 1MJ total for the machines, and another cell running at 2-5MJ to power the auto tree-tap. If you put too much energy into the logger, it will harvest the tree faster than the treetap can collect the resin.