Setting up my first oil refinery -- help :O

[Siigari]

Hey all o/ I just set up my very first Oil Refinery (yay!)

However this thing is guzzling so much power. I'm using a simple Steam Dynamo right now and fueling it with coal blocks at the moment and it's taking about 1 block per 2000 mB of converted fuel.

wat.

Here's my super simple setup:

Spoiler

I have no idea why it's consuming so much power. I have a full drum of oil (I was lucky and hit what I believe to be an oil spring right off the bat) and am trying to make a drum of fuel now... but.. yeah.

Anyway guidance and/or help is really appreciated. Thanks so much!

 

[epidemia78]

Well you are using coal to power your refineries. Now that you have fuel, power the refineries with that instead. They will operate much more efficiently.

 

[Siigari]

Okay so let me understand this properly:

Refine oil with fuel that I refined with coal to refine more fuel faster?

What's the exchange here I'm getting?

 

[epidemia78]

Well Im sure theres someone here who can explain the math behind it all but all I know is that I add a bucket of oil to each of my dynamos, so they can charge up the refineries and from then on they run on fuel. And it lasts forever. (actually what I do is use an energy cell powered from my short lived steam dynamo setup but the other way works too)

Also it should be noted that even though all Dynamos output the same RF, different fuels burn for longer times.

 

[Siigari]

Ok.. so I just hooked up a combustion engine to the fuel tank. Now my combustion engine is full of fuel and water, has 6 MJ/t output, 10,000 MJ stored and is 60 degrees Celsius and heating up more. But... the refinery is not being powered.

What am I doing wrong?

edit: It's now at 100.01 deg C, water is draining and nothing is happening.

 

[epidemia78]

Ok I know this one from experience. BC engines do NOT output to energy conduits. You will have to use something else like BC pipes or EnderIO conduits.

 

[Siigari]

Ok I know this one from experience. BC engines do NOT output to energy conduits. You will have to use something else like BC pipes or EnderIO conduits.

Great information. Right as you were typing it I hooked it directly into the refinery (haha.) Now it's working.. albeit slowly right now.

I'll advise you when I have more info!

 

[epidemia78]

Heres an interesting idea. Those engines will overheat and explode if you leave them on all the time and the energy buffer is full. And the fact that Buildcraft doesnt really have a energy battery now that TE is its own entity means that you will have to think outside the box. In another thread someone pointed out that theres something called an oil fabricator in MFR which converts power into however much it would be worth in oil with no loss. Which is basically an energy buffer. Anything that isnt used in your machines gets recycled back into the system and your engines and refineries will never stop moving, and never explode.

 

[Siigari]

Hmm, well a Compression Dynamo produces 80 RF/t. I'm unsure though, what's the best way to go? :|

Right now I just want a quick and inexpensive and mostly hands-free way to convert my oil into fuel.

 

[Padfoote]

BC gates allow for you to toggle the state of the engine based on if there's work available for it or not.

 

[Siigari]

Amazing! It's hooked up and working well

Check it out:

 

[Siigari]

Wow, just crunched some numbers. Right now with my two drums of oil I'm sitting on 3 billion RF.

That's really not bad, it should carry me through early game at least.

 

[Hippieshaman]

You should put gates on your wooden kinetic pipes so they don't blow up when the refinery is done and no longer draws power. Or change them to TE conduits.

 

[Padfoote]

You should put gates on your wooden kinetic pipes so they don't blow up when the refinery is done and no longer draws power. Or change them to TE conduits.

I agree on the gates, but the conduits won't do an MJ --> RF conversion.

 

[Hippieshaman]

I'm fairly certain the conduits are MJ compatible, at least they used to be right after they introduced RF.

 

[Padfoote]

I'm fairly certain the conduits are MJ compatible, at least they used to be right after they introduced RF.

They will convert RF to MJ, but cannot accept MJ.

 

[Harvest88]

I'm fairly certain the conduits are MJ compatible, at least they used to be right after they introduced RF.

No it's only RF can go in then comes out MJ if needed so it's RF>MJ and it's can't do the opposite as stated here.

They will convert RF to MJ, but cannot accept MJ.

 

[Hippieshaman]

I see, ok then. Use gates

 

[Siigari]

I'll need to make an assembly array for the gates. For now I'll just babysit. Not that it's going to be done /soon/.

Hey, which gate do I want to use? This is my first time experimenting with gates.

 

[Omegatron]

This is a simple gate tutorial. I think another option would be to set the gates to power requested -> redstone signal and then the engines will only activate when the refinery needs power. Personally though I'd just use compression dynamos and stick with Thermal Expansion.