Whats the best way to hook up a quarry?

[David Chambers]

At the moment I have this in a test world

http://imgur.com/gnDzsGz

How do I connect the MFSU to the golden conductive pipes? At the moment we're using an redstone energy cell, but it runs out too quickly and this is the best I can come up with :/


Thanks

 

[Guswut]

The MFSU needs to be wired using either the gold wire (IC2 wire, for EU) or the glass/diamond wire (IC2 wire, for EU) to the electrical engines. Also, I would not suggesting using conductive pipes as they can explode if they do not empty of power fast enough. Look into redstone conduit as they will not explode.

 

[zilvarwolf]

I'd suggest two energy tesseracts, with one hooked up to whatever you use to charge your redstone energy cell. If you're worried about the quarry eating ALL of your juice, put your redstone energy cell on the source side of the quarry and throttle it back to a level where your power gen can keep up

 

[Hydra]

If they have power issues throwing 25% of their power away with energy tesseracts might not be the best idea.

 

[Guswut]

I'd suggest two energy tesseracts

To confirm, energy tesseracts will only deliver 75% of the power you input into them (they have a 25% energy fee for usage), which is a fairly massive loss of power. You are much better off manually moving redstone energy cells using a crescent hammer turtle and two ender chests to save that 25%.

~~~

If they have power issues throwing 25% of their power away with energy tesseracts might not be the best idea.

Exactly. With our posts combined, let's hope we can stop the spread of energy-wasteful power movement solutions!

 

[zemerick]

First, I always recommend redstone conduit over golden conductive pipes. They are vastly superior.

Also, you have a problem with that piping. You need a wooden conductive pipe to pull the power out of the engine, which then goes to the gold pipe.

MFSU would be vast overkill for electrical engines. It puts out 512 eu/t. Electrical engines use 6eu/t normally ( 5 eu/t with iron electron tubes. ) Not sure what kind of power generation you have on there ( I use sphax, so not used to default textures, lol. )

To fully power a Quarry you need 100 MJ/t though you get fairly minimal gain after about 45. So 24 Electrical engines with iron electron tubes will get you a nice 48 MJ/t at a cost of only 120eu/t. ( 2 MV Solar Arrays. )

When you use the Redstone Energy Cell, you can set how much power it sends out by right clicking it and using the arrows on the right. They default to the max of 100 MJ/t which would indeed burn through the cell very quickly. Turn it down to a number just a bit over your input power to get it to last a long time but also use up the stored power so you aren't wasting any.

I assume you know you need to connect power from the MFSU to the electrical engines btw. Being an MFSU your only options are fiber cable and 4x insulated HV cable. ( Well, you don't need to insulate it...just be aware it'll kill you if you get too close to uninsulated cables sending HV. )

I also assumed an up to date modpack, as you didn't mention which one you are using. If it's the FTB Beta A pack though, the quarry can only take 10 MJ/t, which is only 5 Electrical Engines.

 

[zilvarwolf]

If they have power issues throwing 25% of their power away with energy tesseracts might not be the best idea.

Yes, the energy loss (plus more from using conduit...I think the total becomes 30%?) is a concern, but, IME, it's easier to upgrade power generation once you start getting the nice input from a quarry, so getting input from a slow quarry is preferable (to me) than heaving to deal with moving redstone cells around, or setup a system to do that.

 

[David Chambers]

Alright, I have this setup now

http://imgur.com/X2c21bc

I guess I just need to hook it up to the MFE? Normal IC2 cables don't connect to the redstone conduit. The energy tesseracts are cool, but we aren't exactly rich... (kinda why we're trying to setup a quarry haha)

 

[Guswut]

Alright, I have this setup now

http://imgur.com/X2c21bc

I guess I just need to hook it up to the MFE? Normal IC2 cables don't connect to the redstone conduit. The energy tesseracts are cool, but we aren't exactly rich... (kinda why we're trying to setup a quarry haha)

Redstone conduit and conductive pipes are for MJ, which is what the quarry needs. IC2 (and electrical engines) require EU. EU travels over IC2 cable. So, what you need to do is run cable to each of those engines in a new line on the top of them. Also, make glass/diamond cable, as gold cable will lose energy every two (or every) cable block. It does not lose a lot of energy, but it adds up. You can also move your MFE over the engines to get it closer. And make sure to not use copper IC2 cable.

 

[David Chambers]

Here's the finished product

http://imgur.com/QOcdRJm

How many advanced solar panels do you guys think would be enough to keep the quarry going?

 

[Hydra]

A 'good' speed is 10MJ/t, for that you need 5 engines (2mj/t each). With the iron tube upgrade (efficiency) one engine takes 5eu/t. So 25eu/t total. If it's a normal day/night world you need to double that and make sure you have a buffer that's big enough. One advanced solar gives 8 eu/t during the day.

If you want to go 'max' speed you multiply everything by 2.5 (quarries can use more power than that but you won't really notice a difference above 25mj/t).

 

[zemerick]

Well, if those engines are not modified, they use 6eu/t each. With 6 of them, you need 36eu/t.

Advanced solars are 8 eu/t each. ( Solar panels are 1 eu/t, and each upgrade is 8 times the previous. So, advanced are 8, hybrid are 64, and ultimate are 512. )

So, you have 2 choices: 4 will get you pretty close at 32 eu/t, but won't cap it out. 5 will get you 40eu/t which is a bit overkill.

Ideally, you would go with 4 Advanced and 4 regular solar panels.

Is this quarry in an eternal day mystcraft age, or is it somewhere with day/night/storms? If so, you will want to further increase the power to make up for the night and storms. This is hard to get an exact number because sleeping skips night and storms are random and vary by biome.

PS: You still haven't mentioned which pack you actually are on. This can make a difference.

 

[Guswut]

How many advanced solar panels do you guys think would be enough to keep the quarry going?

That depends on your application location. Will you be deploying it in the overworld (ten minutes of day at eight EU/t, 7 minutes of night, 1.5 minutes of sunrise, 1.5 minutes of sunset which only gives 1EU I believe)? If so, you can use mathematics to determine the cost versus how many engines you are going to run, or you can just keep adding panels until you gain more EU than you lose over the course of a MineCraft day or two.

 

[Hydra]

Or just man up and set up a proper biofuel production facility and be done with all this wussy solar nonsense!

 

[SteveTech]

Is it just me or are those energy conduits facing the wrong way on the engines?

 

[Guswut]

Is it just me or are those energy conduits facing the wrong way on the engines?

It may just be you, unless I entirely forgot which way arrows point:

 

[SteveTech]

I could have sworn that any connection that is an output from a machine should be orange... especially since those blue arrows are pointing towards the engines..

I could be wrong though.

 

[Guswut]

I could have sworn that any connection that is an output from a machine should be orange... especially since those blue arrows are pointing towards the engines..

I could be wrong though.

You know, I think you are right and I have forgotten how engines work. Hold on, I'm checking in game to see as I don't remember, but yes, if the arrows are pointing to the engines, then we'll have another post from David fairly soon.

To confirm, you are correct. They are pointing into the engines, which means they will NOT pass MJ into the system. This can be resolved by hitting them with a buildcraft wrench/omniwrench.

 

[SteveTech]

They might still pass MJ into the system, i've heard tales of certain machines sort of ignoring the direction(although there were efficiency problems as a result).

Either way, trying to decipher an arrow two pixels wide is a surprisingly difficult task XD

 

[DoctorOr]

I could have sworn that any connection that is an output from a machine should be orange... especially since those blue arrows are pointing towards the engines..

I could be wrong though.

It is only necessary to force the direction for conduits for blocks that can both generate and receive power. Like energy cells. For engines, it's completely unnecessary.