The new 5x5 IC² Reactor

Shouldn't work exactly as a wire, since that's not how heat works. Rather it ahould heat up the entire line of conductors, the more conductors you have, the longer it takes to heat them all up. E.g. You have 10 heat conductors and you output 200 hU. That would make each heat conductor have 20 hU.

So the steam generator appears to be broken. Whenever it is actually generating steam, it stops accepting heat from the exchanger. As a result, you have to turn it on for a moment, it cools off rapidly, then you have to switch it back off to let it heat up again.

Also why does the turbine constantly say warning: condensation is slowing it down? It keeps making distilled water, which I added a fluid ejector upgrade so it kicks it back to the steam generator, yet it keeps complaining.

Also what is the pressure setting supposed to do? It doesn't appear to do anything at all.

Finally, I thought the redstone signal was supposed to stop the reactor, but it only seems to cut its output in half.

the pressure setting controls the temperature to operate and thus the hU/t that is required

set it to 0 or 220 for 100 or 200 hU/t usage

The condensation is just a reminder that you are using steam instead of superheated steam.

When turning of the redstone on a reactor the cells stop producing heat but components that are damaged continue to cool down and produce hU

Any word about how it stops accepting heat while it is actually generating steam?

Also how do you keep the heat in the reactor stable? It feels like the fission generates a certain amount of heat and you either vent enough of that heat to the coolant to keep the reactor core cold, which causes it to bounce back and forth between full heat output and not full heat output, or you slowly build up heat in the core until it melts down. Is there no way to reach an equilibrium where it stays at say, 30% heat and maintains full output?

So I have managed to set up what I am sure is a crappy reactor using two fuel rods and producing 200 heat, coupling that with dual heat exchangers each attached to their own liquid port, dumping the heat into a single steam generator, powering a turbine and kinetic generator to produce 100 eu, which seems to be a few times more than a biofule generator. This works as long as I keep the pressure set at 0 or 1 bar, and 2 mb of water per tick. Any other setting and it goes nuts, oscillating between outputting steam and water, causing eu output to drop. It will not produce super heated steam no matter what I do.

From what I have read, I should be able to build a better reactor core to output much more heat, and use that to make super heated steam to produce even more eu per heat, but I don't see how to produce super heated steam, or how to get much more heat out of the reactor and into the steam turbine.

Quote from SpwnX

200 hU/t is exactly the amount of heat needed to start producing superheated steam.

Settings : 220bar pressure valve, 1 mb/t water input.

Output 100mb/t of superheated steam.

You also have to chain two turbines in that setup, as the first turbine running of superheated steam will output regular steam afterwards, which can be further harnessed for more energy.

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Isn't the first turbine supposed to also output more energy? Otherwise how is that better than 1 bar and 2 mb/t?

Also I have been looking at the whole uranium life cycle and do I have this right? You enrich uranium, and end up with extra u-238. When the enriched uranium is spent, you centrifuge that for most of the u-238 back and some plutonium. You mix the plutonium with u-238 to get mox. When the mox is spent, you get lots of plutonium, which you can then make into rtg pellets and put them into a lower power output radioisotope reactor, but it lasts forever.

Now I think I read that the mox is supposed to burn hotter than enriched uranium, but it also seems to get used up faster, which is odd. I thought that everything in the reactor ticked at the same time, but the durability on the mox rod is ticking faster than the uranium.

The old reactor system used high core temp in a breeder reactor, but in the new reactor system, the core temp doesn't matter right? Aside of course from a meltdown.

So I have worked my reactor design into what I think is a pretty good state. It produces nearly 300 eu ( not sure why it isn't a full 300 ) from 400 heat using dual super heated steam chains from a reactor core that has a single quad uranium rod that cycles on for 5 minutes and off for 5 minutes, and should last about 12 hours. The only problem I have with it is that I have to manually move the distilled water cells from the condenser back to the fluid regulator that keeps the steam generator full. Is there a way to automate that part of the cycle with pure ic2?

My reactor core has a quad uranium rod surrounded by thick neutron reflectors, and 4 columns full of overclocked heat vents and advanced heat exchangers, with a few advanced heat vents thrown in, and a few reactor heat platings. During the 5 minute off cycle, the core temp drops to zero within one minute but the residual heat in all of the components keeps pumping out 400 heat to the exchangers for the remaining 4 minutes.

One odd thing I have noticed though is that the thick neutron reflectors are wearing out faster than the quad uranium rod, which it shouldn't do since it is supposed to be good for 40,000 pulses, and the uranium rods are good for 10,000, so the quad pack should match up with the 40,000 of the reflector.

What is the proper way to use the fluid regulator? I have the dark side connected to the LHE and it is powered, but it appears to be doing nothing. I have a problem where I either have too much hot coolant causing my reactor to heat up, or too few hot coolant causing my superheated steam to revert to regular steam. I have to constantly add and remove two copper heat exchangers to keep the balance. I thought the fluid regulator would help in this situation but like I said it doesn't seem to do anything, and I can't find any posts/wiki information about it.

While I'm here, I have been using scars design from a few posts back - Reactor: http://goo.gl/GO5Bd and this is what it looks like - http://i.imgur.com/zwP30QK.jpg and http://i.imgur.com/oPVgHp9.jpg

Is there a more efficient way I could be doing this? I currently sit at 912 heat and about 650 EU generated with this setup, but like I said it takes manual work moving the heat exchangers.

total noob here!

I am playing with this on a test world ( creative)

I built a 5x5 of the pressure vessel.. 7 reactors ( one in center 1 reactor on each side)

1 redstone port
1 access hatch
2 fluid ports ( as the first post has)

and its still stuck in EU mode and not showing the full space and coolant modes..

I know I am doing something wrong but can't figure out what!!!

could someone give a rundown for the dummies like me to start? to start?

What is the best design for my situation, I am looking to power the mass fabricator and need high output but want it as safe as possible. I currently have a steam reactor that outputs about 600 eu. Is there a better design for this? Should I chain a few reactors and just do Eu?

Quote from Chocohead

Did you fill in the space around the normal nuclear reactor inside the 5x5 cube? (If you did you're not meant to ;))

nope.. 5 blocks high 5 blocks left and right set of 7 reactors in the middle nothing else inside ..... wish there was a guide/setup because this is confusing

Quote from viper2g1

What is the proper way to use the fluid regulator? I have the dark side connected to the LHE and it is powered, but it appears to be doing nothing. I have a problem where I either have too much hot coolant causing my reactor to heat up, or too few hot coolant causing my superheated steam to revert to regular steam. I have to constantly add and remove two copper heat exchangers to keep the balance. I thought the fluid regulator would help in this situation but like I said it doesn't seem to do anything, and I can't find any posts/wiki information about it.

While I'm here, I have been using scars design from a few posts back - Reactor: http://goo.gl/GO5Bd and this is what it looks like - http://i.imgur.com/zwP30QK.jpg and http://i.imgur.com/oPVgHp9.jpg

Is there a more efficient way I could be doing this? I currently sit at 912 heat and about 650 EU generated with this setup, but like I said it takes manual work moving the heat exchangers.

You use the fluid regulator to pump water into the steam generator, not to regulate coolant. Just connect the liquid heat exchangers directly to the fluid ports in the reactor. Two of them fully populated with heat conductors will produce super heated steam in the steam generator with 1 mb/t of water, and consume 400 heat/t from the reactor. If your reactor core produces more heat than that, then yes, the hot coolant will build up until it is either full, or you are out of cold coolant, and the core will heat up. This is why you need to use the redstone to cycle it on and off in a carefully controlled duty cycle.

Quote from Physicist

Mementh: Your problem is that you're using Reactor blocks for all 7 blocks.

Use Reactor Casing for the 6 exposed blocks, and only the reactor block for the middle.

plus 1000 internets man!!!! AWESOME!! it worked!!!

i knew i was missing something extremely simple!!!!

its working but it produces less energy then my huge honking solar system ( using mod i have about 320+ solar cells.. into like 40 low voltage cells ( uses less SMP resources) and i make like 320 EU/t..
whats the benifit here that the reactor can do over the green power i have? ( main thing i understand is if i power this up alot i can get thousands of EU/t but have to let the reactor cool down to avoid blow ups)

maybe i don't understand the need for a nuclear reactor ?

I do understand this is a balance between water.. just don't know what the formula's would be here.. very confused and would like guadance as to what settings and how much water should be in it.