Don't waste your energy ! - mass fabricator and parallel cicruit

  • Hello,


    The problem of the mass fabricator is it will suck all the energy out of your power grid. So you can't use your machines anymores.


    here is a little circuit that give to the mass fabricator only the surplus of energy.




    your need to use some mfe or mfs, depending of your production capacity and adapt transformers as well to not vaporize your base. if your production is less than 128 eus mfes are just fine.


    -> you supply two mfe in a parallel circuit, the second is redstoned. so he will only output his energy if he's full.
    -> the first mfe supply the second one and the third as well
    -> the output of the redstoned mfe is splitted. one branch supply the mass fabricator, the other feed the third mfe.
    -> the third mfe feed your machines and uses the energy of the first and the second mfe. it mean if your machines use more than your power source, your mass fabricator will stop working.


    what do you think of this ? i just tested it, it's works like a charm but it's a bit expensive. a 128eu/s is do-able. but the mfs setup will be very expensive :/ did you find a better (cheaper?) way to use a high energy input without any waste ?


    there is an other problem, you need to fill complety the redstoned mfe before you can do anything with your power gris. Again, it's easy with a cheap setup but pain in the *** with the huge capacity of the mfs units ...

    • Official Post

    Love this little design. I've been throwing ideas around in my head trying to work out how to do this and it seems you've come up with a nify solution. Kudos to you. :D


    I doubt the expense is much of an issue, as you've clearly got excess energy to waste, lol. I'll probably use something like this when we get SMP on the go.

  • Great thoughts,
    however I always thought that you would of course use a different power circuit entirely

  • I thought that too, but with this it's easier just to hook up one nuclear reactor (for example) to ALL your machines, and not have other generators for your machines. I think I'll use this, once, when I get a bigger reactor.. :rolleyes:

  • This setup looks incorrect to me. It looks like 3/4th would go to your machines, and 1/4th would go to the mass fabricator. I have no issue with this, it is far better than my setup, but regardless, what am I missing?


    The top two storage will fill up, but the machines will tend to drain that one. When the other one is full, it will start discharging, sending half to the first storage and half to the fabricator. So this is certainly more efficient, and will certainly leave the other one full most of the time. Although, the second storage looks to be likely to have energy stored, which could cause your machines to go dry, since it only emmits when full. hmm.

  • yep i understand what you mean, i think.


    So my system is screwed when you machines call for more than 75% of the energy input. well for example if you have 50 solar panel (let's say there is no loss due to the distance) if my machines call more than 37.5 they will alternativly go on and off. And if my machines call for 50 eu/s they will have an uptime of 75%.


    So this structure don't just redirect the overflow to the mass fabricator. In fact it allow 75% priority to the main branch and redirect the rest to the second branch. while it still redirect the overflow when you are in this 75/25 ratio.


    there is probably a way to change this ratio, by using more branchs but meh it becomes complicated and i don't want to have an headache xD


    i'm not sure of what i'm saying but i think i'm near the reality. what do you think of this ?


    sorry for my bad english, btw :p

  • I don't see how using redstone on the second MFE makes any difference. All it would seem to do is require for it to be full in order to output EU. But if the redstone is always on, once the MFE is full, it will function just like wiring, passing through ANY EU that goes to it since it never can get drained. Since the first MFE splits it's charge between numbers 2 and 3, number 2 will always get EU from 1, and split that charge between the mass fab and MFE number 3. Basically, looking at it on paper, I don't understand the purpose of MFE number 2. It seems the system would function the same if it wasn't even there, or at the very least, not redstoned.


  • yep. However, I do think it is highly practical, as it certainly sends most of the power to your machine's storage, and the rest to the mass fabricator.

  • Just put your MF at the end of your structure, so everything else gets powered.
    [energy income]
    |
    [energy storage]
    |
    |-[LV] for all your machines
    |-[LV] etc.
    |-etc.
    |
    [energy storage]
    |
    Mass fabricator


  • Wont work. You see, you wont store any energy that way for your machines for when they need it.

  • Once we get energy-o-mat with energy flow detection, we just hook it to mass fabric using redstone. (if machine is used, then mass fabric is off.)

    Please ignore this floating platform with 10,000 solar panels. Nothing to see here.


  • Wont work. You see, you wont store any energy that way for your machines for when they need it.

    Now that I think of it, you are right.. Although it will prioritize the machines over the MF, but then the storage would become obsolete.


    So lets try somthing else:
    You might just have a storage for every LV branch, so they get priority over the MF. Since the MF is the one at the end.
    I havn't actually build it, I'm trying to figure out a good architecture for my 1.8 base! :)


    so it looks like this:


    [income]
    |
    |-[storage][factory1 branch]
    |-[storage][factory2 branch]
    |-[storage][factory3 branch]
    |-etc.
    |
    [MF]


    And if you'd want factory1, 2 and 3 have the same priority make them branch off at the same time.
    Or just have 1 factory.

  • This seems like a lot of work. From my own experiments it seems that the device closest to a source (transformer -> 1 cable -> MFSU in my case) will consume up to 3/4 of the available power if there is another power sink on a longer path away. Attached to that middle cable I have about 30 cables to a mass fab. The MFSU got most of the energy until it was full. I would love some more details from the developers on why this happened.

  • I just do it like this:


    When the transformer is NOT receiving redstone power, it let's energy through to the mass fabricator. When the transformer IS receiving redstone power, it tries to send energy the other way, but since the mass fabricator doesn't produce energy, nothing happens.
    Just keep an eye on how much energy you have in your MFSU and turn the transformer on/off accordingly.

  • I just do it like this:


    When the transformer is NOT receiving redstone power, it let's energy through to the mass fabricator. When the transformer IS receiving redstone power, it tries to send energy the other way, but since the mass fabricator doesn't produce energy, nothing happens.
    Just keep an eye on how much energy you have in your MFSU and turn the transformer on/off accordingly.

    it also works the same way when put on a eu storage like a batbox a lever will act like a on/off switch

  • If you place machines in a row, it will give all the energy required to the first one, then if theres enough energy the 2nd one will get energy and so on.


    With that being said you can easily create an infrastructure where your main factory will get priority over your MF, without any userinput/maintenance.

  • If you place machines in a row, it will give all the energy required to the first one, then if theres enough energy the 2nd one will get energy and so on.


    With that being said you can easily create an infrastructure where your main factory will get priority over your MF, without any userinput/maintenance.


    Will


    MFS-Unit
    Cable Cable Cable Recycler (Mas fab)
    MFS-Unit
    Cable
    Cable
    (Other stuff)


    Give ALL power to the second MFSU as long as it's not full?