The new 5x5 IC² Reactor

Quote from Blood Asp

I have no idea how exactly these condensers work. i pump some distilled water directly out of the second stage turbine but that only gives back ~10% of the Input.

And i finally finished a complete cycle without changing something and storing all the produced Energy.

480mio EU from 4 Quad Mox Rods. So 480mio EU /(10.000sec*20ticks) = 2400EU/t if nothing changed there.

so its possable to store the energy in the coolent cells and not burn it up.. how do you automate removing and adding at a certain time?

Quote from SpwnX

Put a condenser directly adjacent to the second turbine. It will receive the cold steam exhaust (stopping the steam explosions) and will condense it back into distilled water.

yep thats how at the end.. put the condenstor and the fluid regulators

Yes, AE2 import bus with fuzzy upgrade. I take them out at 75%, put them into the secondary reactor, cool them down to 25% (cooling them to 0% is more difficult/slower). I reach 1100-1200HU in the secondary reacor that way. (Does anyone know a more efficient Design for cooling coolantcells?) The 25% cooled down coolant cells go into an hopper above the primary reactor. A comperator on the hopper stops the reacor once there is no cool coolantcell left.

Turbines now with Condensers. I wonder if i really get all water back.
http://imgur.com/a/sPjmQ

I made a video for those who dont know how to build a pressure reactor
hope this helps
www.youtube.com/watch?v=xUkSM5oS27A

Quote from Blood Asp

Yes, AE2 import bus with fuzzy upgrade. I take them out at 75%, put them into the secondary reactor, cool them down to 25% (cooling them to 0% is more difficult/slower). I reach 1100-1200HU in the secondary reacor that way. (Does anyone know a more efficient Design for cooling coolantcells?) The 25% cooled down coolant cells go into an hopper above the primary reactor. A comperator on the hopper stops the reacor once there is no cool coolantcell left.

Turbines now with Condensers. I wonder if i really get all water back.
http://imgur.com/a/sPjmQ

I designed this 6-chamber cooling tower a while back when I was mucking about with CRCS in MC 1.5. I don't think the reactor physics have changed too much since then, so this should still be pretty close to the maximum possible cooling rate. It won't ever get rid of the last few hundred heat, but that's no problem if you use AE to yank the coolant cells out when they're 75% cooled.

Each component heat exchanger can transfer a maximum of 36 units of heat (that is, points of damage on the components; I have no clue how that corresponds to HU) per second, so the fastest that heat can possibly be extracted from a single coolant cell is 36*4=144 heat per second. The cooler I linked above cools four cells at that rate and fills the entire reactor, for a total of 576 heat per second and no room to squeeze anything else in.

576 heat should be 1152 Hu/s So more or less the same as my setup. i would like to have an setup that get's me 1200Hu/s then i could go to 1800EU/t with only 2 secondary reactors.

Quote from Blood Asp

576 heat should be 1152 Hu/s So more or less the same as my setup. i would like to have an setup that get's me 1200Hu/s then i could go to 1800EU/t with only 2 secondary reactors.

Unfortunately, that's almost certainly impossible. The problem is that, unless the physics of heat vents and exchangers has changed since Talonius last updated his reactor planner, the fastest exchanger can only transfer 36 heat per second (or 72 HU/t, apparently). So, you can cool a single cell no faster than 144 heat per tick.
[offTopic]Wait, I can have transparent text? Cool.[/offTopic]
The only possible way to get around this limitation is to put more cells in the reactor. Doing so runs into a second limitation: the amount of space in the reactor. Your cooler design fills all the available space, and mine fills it slightly more efficiently (with one more overclocked vent). So, there's no way to cool more than four cells at 144 heat per tick per cell in one reactor.

However, as I write this I realize that by using more than four cells and cooling them more slowly, it might be possible to increase the total amount of heat drawn from all of them just a bit. This cooler is my first attempt at this. It *should* be able to cool four cells at 60 heat per second, two at 72 heat per second, and two more at 90, for a total of 564. This still isn't as good as the 4-cell 576-heat design I linked to earlier.

In any case, you should be able to improve your cooling tower just a bit by swapping the component exchanger in the center with either of the component vents diagonally adjacent to it. This will only get you another 4 heat per second out of it in total, but saves you the hassle of crafting another OC vent and rearranging half of the components to get the other 8 heat per second that switching to my design would give you.

Also, a tip for designing cooling towers in Talonius's planner: If your coolant cells are surrounded by any combination of exchangers of the same type, components that don't accept heat (i.e. component vents, fuel cells, plating, and empty space), and other coolant cells, you can replace the coolant cells with stacks of heating cells. If the other components don't overheat when you do this, the tower can dissipate at least as much heat per second as the product of the number of heating cells in the stacks and the number of exchangers that touch them. I used this trick when designing both of the coolers I linked to in this thread.

There's no point in stacking more heating cells than the amount of heat the exchangers can transfer to other components each second. For one, they'll build up excess heat and either melt or dump it into the reactor hull; second, they won't be able to pull that much heat from the coolant cells anyway.

I used different aproach - instead of making reactor cooled by cells (i tried that with last picture being nice example) - i created maxed out liquid cooled reactor with automatic refueling making it run as long as it has uranium in supplies. It is survival and it takes time to build those things so i don;t want more explosions than neccesary (and for now there is bug with dissapearing coolant so i need to supply it with stack of lapis dust from time to time)Currently there is dual explosion proof chamber for two reactors, and control center for one (second is not yet installed after last mox bug failure explosion) I regret for now that this setup is impossible with steam generators due to their inherent bug problem with loosing distiled water. Apart from few issues everything is as much automated as possible.

Here is first look at control center room - reactor in background and panel on left

now this is auto refueling system - emerald pipe extracts depleted cells and new ones are hooping in place.

This is reactor configuration - most dense setup on dual rods (those can be recycled in closed cycle and produce new ones - quad have problem with llosing copper. It is perfectly stable but if too much coolant is lost reactor start to heat up which triggers thermal pause (not lighted on panel - orange one) and if temperature exceeds 1000, howler alarm and red light danger - of course reactor is shut down.

This is one picture of 12 heat exchangers with 12 stirlings ( i hope i can replacve it with super heated steam soon) it is set up after explosion barrier so expplosion damage is minimised)
this is from side angle - we see here two circuits of hot and cold coolant and four exchangers on corners and one inside every section. It can be more compact but less insight if sth goes wrong.


batteries are here beczuse of previous new energy net bugs with infinite power loops between generators, but now stayed as they are - working as innercial buffers for heat remainders.
And this is output from reactors - i placed fluid regulators with 50mb / tick to smothen pipes operations, and shorten pipes sections - they are not that responsive

This is auto crafting setup for fuel and dual rods. Everyything circulates in closed cycle except new uranium input form processing plant some levels up.

this is centrifuge, smelting, fuel rod canning for normal and mox and etc.

one more closer look at control center

And nice memories of blowing up 1200 eu stable mox reactor few times.

what i love about buildcraft is that it has very little magical blocks - it is like lego pieces that allows you to build things - small parts that you can put together for whatever you wish I think this is why minecraft is about, to build things out of simplier elements - having magic blocks that do everything is just boring - we should focus on more sandbox experience by providing even more flexible universal "physics rules" as in real world, to acomplish things - it brings creativity. I love bc gates on pipes - it allows for so much cirquitry in relativelly small space - pipes are buggy - and laggy , but are extremelly intuitive and useful. Multiblock structures are somehow response to people desire to build things. What i would love its to break down machines into basic parts - for now we craft them as blocks (i love liquid reactor because you Build it actually from component and actually somehow it resembles real life structures) , what if machine block was a machine block, and you put inside various components. - like engine, transformer , milling head , circuit, and it becomes macerator - but elements are still inside. - you can rebuiild it and so on.. putting together more machien blocks brings you bigger ui - like reactor., and you connect those modules. For example we have our macerator, but i want to already smelt it, so i add furnace chamber, and heater of my choosing and item unloader. and if unloader touches edge of workspace then it is outout, otherwise machine does not work, or brings error on launch and else..liquid heat exchanger - put cells as in and out, and from middle cell attach heat exchanger module(we have one) touching border - and voila
if you want to build kinectic, put magnetic head, and coolis around it then wires to egdes, or simply touching. - you can make multiblock for bigger version/ output/ input and etc.

Sorry to revive a month-old thread haha but I'm having an issue with superheated steam.

Ok I have a fully stable 800hU/s heat reactor that's producing superheated steam with four steam generators.

The problem is that for two of these generator setups I'm pushing superheated steam from my steam generator into two consecutive kinetic steam generators, and the first generator is producing 400kU as expected from superheated steam but the second one just isn't receiving any steam and isn't producing the expected 200kU O.o I have fluid ejector upgrades in both kinetic steam generators to kick the distilled water back into the steam generator and condensers opposite the kU output faces to collect steam.

What confuses me is that two setups are working perfectly fine but the other two aren't.

Does anyone know if this is a bug or something? I'm using the latest build #653

Put one condenser at the end of the two kinetic steam generators(KSG).

Right now the condenser that is beside the KSG is condensing the steam before it can get tot he second KSG.

Ah that seemed to have done the trick thanks! Don't know why it worked with half my setups and didn't with the other half though.

Is there a simple guide for this?

For the 5x5 reactor as a whole?

I understand the reactor,just not the best way to make power.

Place liquid heat exchangers directly next to fluid ports and put fluid ejector upgrades in both of them. Each LHE will use 100hU max so use the appropriate number of LHEs for your reactor. Using the LHEs to convert hot coolant back into coolant which is sent back into the reactor, there are three ways to make power with the 5x5 reactor:

1. Stirling generators

Easiest and most direct way. Just place one stirling generator adjacent to each LHE such that the orange squares on the faces of both machines touch. The heat will be transferred and directly converted into EU at a rate of 100hU to 50EU, so your reactor setup will produe 1EU/2hU. Still a reasonable upgrade from the plain 7-block EU reactor.

2. Steam generators (steam)

Here's where it gets complex. Instead of a stirling generator next to the LHE you can place a steam generator. Any side of the steam generator block will accept heat, and this is central important to the third method explained later. Fill the steam generator with distilled water through an external source like fluid regulators or BC pipes (water works too but the generator will calcify as shown in the bar on the right and when it reaches 100% it will stop working), and the heat will increase the temperature of the generator until it reaches 100 degrees. Input 1mb/t of distilled water (or water) on the control valve at the bottom and voila you have 100mb/t of steam!

Now the steam needs to go somewhere or it'll just cause annoying explosions all over the place and not produce energy (plus you'll lose your valuable distilled water very quickly) so place a kinetic steam generator right next to the steam generator, and place a steam turbine in it. It will use the steam to produce kU (kinetic units) which can directly be converted into EU using a kinetic generator (I said it was complex!). When placing the kinetic steam generator and kinetic generator the side that outputs/inputs kU is the side that faces you.

Distilled water is expensive hence there is a way to recycle it: condensers. By placing a condenser directly adjacent to your kinetic steam generator, the steam will be vented into the condenser, which when powered will condense the steam back into your lovely distilled water, which you can pump back into your steam generator using fluid regulators or fluid distributors or BC pipes or whatever else. Bear in mind that fluid regulators require energy. Additionally, the warning sign that appears in the kinetic steam generator indicates that when using regular steam, distilled water will also condense on the turbine and collect in the kinetic steam generator itself, so just pop in a fluid ejector upgrade to kick it back into the steam generator

This whole complicated setup produces only 50EU per 100hU (correct me if I'm wrong) which is the same as stirling generators. Steam turbines are super expensive and need replacing, and with the costs of all the machines plus the energy requirements of condensers and fluid regulators you're better off using stirlings. Therefore, your best bet with the steam generator would be:

3. Steam generators (superheated steam)

Previously with normal steam a supply of 100hU/t to the steam generator was sufficient. Not for superheated steam though. You'll need to have 2 LHEs facing one steam generator feeding an input of 200hU/t for this to work. Same as before, fill the steam generator with distilled water and turn on your reactor. However, to produce superheated steam, the pressure valve on the top left of the steam generator GUI will have to be set to 221bar. Also, don't panic if the steam generators start rising beyond 100 degrees; superheated steam is produced at 375 degrees. Marvellous.

You should get a GUI like this:

Superheated steam can be used in the same kinetic steam generator as before (though without worry of condensation on the turbine. The warning sign will disappear) to produce 100EU/t and regular steam will be output. This regular steam can then be output into a second kinetic steam generator to produce an additional 50EU. The first kinetic steam generator doesn't require a condenser as distilled water does not condense, but the second one does.

Note that energy production is now 75EU per 100hU. This is the highest that the nuclear reactor can go as far as I know so you'll want to upgrade to this as soon as you have the resources.

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Well that was a mouthful - and the steam setups require some nasty engineering as of build 653 so NEVER use it in a survival world first. Always test it out in creative before you delve into steam setups. Since I don't know how to take screenshots properly with Windows 8 my explanation may seem confusing, so here's mementh's video to the steam generators: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=APWSfeI5QbA. A picture speaks a thousand words and a video speaks a thousand pictures. If I went wrong anywhere feel free to correct me guys!

One pic that I managed to get is this. It's an 800hU/s reactor that may be useful for testing, rather than non-multiples of 100hU that fluctuate all over the place.

Are there any stable designs for those who are stuck with quad rods? I'd like to not nuke things if I can, so if anyone more adventurous has more tips..

OK boys and girls

Upgrade for superheated steam powerplant with stable 813 eu/t with full automation (distiled water resuply + turbine replacement). Unfortunatelly i need to put box of spare turbines for replacement - can;t recycle them or sth
Here are upgraded photos :

stable eus

global look at my ring exchangers (i tried to minimize redundancy - this is survival game :P) and machinery. Distiled water buffer tanks with piping for coolant - bc pipes will work nicelly only in p2p setup - any junction and it will lag out. Whole setup is separated by reinforced concrete from reactors to prevent any damage "in case"

Here is look at generators and configuration - last 1xx heat was redirected to stirlings due to it's non consistent output. BC gates are my automation solution - basic ones light up red wire when any turbine is missing (there is space in inventory) and pause reactor and trigger turbine replacement circuit to push new turbines through pipe (which rounds up along all steam generators to deliver missing). i separated generators output intentionally to prevent power loops and power multiplying bugs.

closer look at coolant circle - actually extending this could allow to double power production - unfortunatelly no IC2 reactor can do this.

instead of 3 mfsu's now there is bunkered AFSU for power storage - i left room for one more if i'll be crazy enough or i'll be able to finally run mffs with 1.7.10 and newest ic2.

better look at completed automation - iron gates (blue wire) are for distiled water refill - when there is less than 75% distiled water in bioler and steam condenser has space for fluid redstne signal powers 1 bucket of distiled water into system.

more top view for whole system.

and distiled water tank -(now about 1560 buckets of distiled water - 7 automated solar distilers on the rof piped down to it for around 1-2 months