Store liquid in pipe?

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KowKrisis

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Jul 29, 2019
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Have you tried turning off the pump that pumps the biomass from the tank into the pipes that lead to your engines? This will allow you to better monitor your biomass production and when you need to, turn the pump back on again. The problem with using pipes as a gauge is the liquids tend to slosh around.
 

behedwin

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Jul 29, 2019
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Ah, yes i am checking the tank. It is not going up. But the pump from the tank pumping out liquid is still ON.
So i guess there is more room in the pipes before they are full and the tank start going up.

Ill wait a bit and see.
If the tank still is empty, ill turn of the pump from the tank and let it fill up to 100.000 units
then start the pump again and see if i can push it out to the pipes.
 

b0bst3r

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Jul 29, 2019
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Turn off the output from the tank, then the fermenters biomass has to go into the tank (that part will not stay in the pipes) you should see biomass immediately enter the tank. The only screenshots we don't have are of your tank setup.
 

behedwin

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Jul 29, 2019
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Kind of hard to take a screen of the tank. It is hidden in the ground.
I have input on one side, output on the other side (same level).

If i do turn of the output of the tank. The tank do fill up.
But as soon as i put on the output on the tank, the tank empty itself.
It empty itself even if i do not have any machines ON that uses the fuel. Therefor over 100.000 units of fuel is stored in the pipe i assume.
 

KowKrisis

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Jul 29, 2019
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At this point I would just give the system time. Step away from it, go mining or work on something else for a while. My guess is that the line of pipes your using is really long and is taking a lot of biomass to fill up. I have never had issues with water proof pipes causing liquids to disappear and I have never heard of it ( not saying impossible just seems unlikely).

On the plus side you will have a rather large buffer of fuel by the end of it all.
 

Runo

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Jul 29, 2019
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Is there any particular reason you aren't using stills and combustion engines? Unless something changed that I'm unaware of, biomass has always been far less efficient that biofuel.

Also curious, are you piling up saplings for the fermenter? You should be given the size of your treefarm. I hope you aren't making plant balls for the fermenter, which would explain all the problems you're having with fuel shortages.
 

behedwin

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Jul 29, 2019
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Im not getting unmanageable amount of saplings, i could use more since i want to run more fermentors and produce allot more fuel than im doing now.

I have never used combustion engines... what is that?
 

behedwin

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Jul 29, 2019
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I checked how long my pipes are.
All are gold waterproof pipes.

I have 72 blocks of pipes leading from my tank to my machineroom.

It means that each block can hold 4 buckets of liquid.
I should be able to hold 288 buckets of fuel in the pipe before it is full and starts filling up the tank.

If my information is correct, 288 buckets.
Should be 288000mb

So far i have in my tank 49633mb
So i need to wait untill i have 288.000 mb in the tank.
Then i should be able to pump it all out in the pipe and it should be Full and not be able to pump out anymore from the tank.


Right?
 

KowKrisis

New Member
Jul 29, 2019
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The math seems correct to me.

72 pipes * 4 buckets/pipe = 288 buckets.

288 bucket * 1000 mb/bucket = 288000 mb

The only variables I see missing is how many buckets of biomass are in the pipes already and how much more is required to fill them.
Those matter very little though if you wait to 288,000 mb mark and then empty the tank into the pipes.
 

Runo

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Jul 29, 2019
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Im not getting unmanageable amount of saplings, i could use more since i want to run more fermentors and produce allot more fuel than im doing now.

I have never used combustion engines... what is that?

Combustion engines are a buldcraft engine that is very efficient with refined fuels. It produces a net gain of about 28% more power when factoring in the stills from the same amount of source material.

Biomass goes into a still and is condensed into biofuel, usually requires about 4 stills per fermenter. The biofuel burns better in combustion engines and boilers and is easier to store because of the higher energy density.
 
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MigukNamja

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Jul 29, 2019
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In my experience, BC waterproof pipes have......strange issues. I swear they were losing lava in one setup I had. I was like "where is all my lava going ?" This was only on a long BC waterproof pipe run.

Once I switched to TE liquiducts, I've never had a problem.

I noticed you're using TE machines in one of your screenshots, so you have TE installed. Good. Try replacing the Gold Waterproof pipes from your tank to you engines with TE liquiducts. The liquiducts will require you to 'wrench' the interface connect to your tank so it's pointed it out and then a redstone signal like a lever to activate it. Wrenched output + lever is the equivalent of a redstone engine + lever "powering" a wooden waterproof pipe.

One nice thing about TE liquiducts and energy conduits is you can measure them using the hand-held TE meter.[DOUBLEPOST=1379523075][/DOUBLEPOST]
Combustion engines are a buldcraft engine that is very efficient with refined fuels. It produces a net gain of about 28% more power when factoring in the stills from the same amount of source material.

Biomass goes into a still and is condensed into biofuel, usually requires about 4 stills per fermenter. The biofuel burns better in combustion engines and boilers and is easier to store because of the higher energy density.


Agreed. For on-demand quick on-off power, it's hard to beat a combustion engine.
 

Hydra

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Jul 29, 2019
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Is there any particular reason you aren't using stills and combustion engines? Unless something changed that I'm unaware of, biomass has always been far less efficient that biofuel.

It's not. Ethanol might be more energy-dense but you're not really gaining anything from distilling it other than the ability to use combustion engines / boilers.
 

Runo

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Jul 29, 2019
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It's not. Ethanol might be more energy-dense but you're not really gaining anything from distilling it other than the ability to use combustion engines / boilers.

According to the wiki, you net 42,800mj per bucket of biofuel/3buckets biomass. 50,000mj - 7200mj (still power cost x 3). That includes the power cost of the stills, and is a 28% gain. The gain in boilers is significantly higher, almost double.
 

Hydra

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Jul 29, 2019
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According to the wiki, you net 42,800mj per bucket of biofuel/3buckets biomass. 50,000mj - 7200mj (still power cost x 3). That includes the power cost of the stills, and is a 28% gain. The gain in boilers is significantly higher, almost double.

I just did a check. Distilling 100 buckets of biomass into 30 buckets of ethanol costs you 250000MJ. So that's 2500 MJ per bucket.With that you end up with 0.3 bucket of biofuel per bucket of biomass.

Biomass: 5 * 10000 = 50000 MJ
Ethanol: 4 * 60000 * 0.3 (buckets per biomass) - 8333 (destillation) = 63667 MJ

So you're right it's about a 28% gain. Kinda odd because I did these calculations a while ago and, without factoring in the destillation costs, it was exactly the same. Guess some stuff got rebalanced.
 

Runo

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Jul 29, 2019
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I just did a check. Distilling 100 buckets of biomass into 30 buckets of ethanol costs you 250000MJ. So that's 2500 MJ per bucket.With that you end up with 0.3 bucket of biofuel per bucket of biomass.

Biomass: 5 * 10000 = 50000 MJ
Ethanol: 4 * 60000 * 0.3 (buckets per biomass) - 8333 (destillation) = 63667 MJ

So you're right it's about a 28% gain. Kinda odd because I did these calculations a while ago and, without factoring in the destillation costs, it was exactly the same. Guess some stuff got rebalanced.

I forgot to also mention the GT distillation tower (though it wouldn't factor into unleashed) offered a huuuge increase to biofuel as well. It had an equivalent refining cost of 640mj per bucket, but gave you 50% conversion instead of 30%.