Most efficient Solar Wiring Design

1st Official Post

    I will admit THIS IS NOT MY DESIGN, I saw it on Direwolf20's Lets Play and wanted to see how it worked... (It was build by Zeldo who made Teleport Pipes For Buildcraft)


    Anyway showing the design..

    This is a tiny bit over a quarter of the max size of this design, but it is extremely efficient.



    Surprisingly, only one quarter of the max power is a whooping 820EU! The secret of the huge size is in tin cables, and how power works in IC2. I know you are thinking "Tin Cables can only hold 3EU, how are you passing 820EU through it??" It is true tin cables can only hold 3EU packets before melting, but they can hold an UNLIMITED amounts of packets. They cant hold one 32EU packet, but they can hold 820+ packets of 1EU. Also, tin cables are very cheap, and can extend 40 blocks before lossing EU. The only problem is that after 40 Blocks, you lose 1 EU per packet, which in the case of solar power, you get no power at all!


    Advantages:
    Solar Array can be VERY big!
    Tin Cables are cheaper than copper cables, and you dont need rubber for the cables.
    Easily can get over 2000EU/s with a full array.
    No batboxes are needed, other than one MFSU in the middle.


    Disadvantages:
    Can't Have tin cables over 40 blocks.
    Has to built during night to avoid extreme lag spikes.
    Is very CPU Hungry.


    Hope you guys like this Design!

    Quote from anorend

    wouldnt the MSFU quickly fill up sense it only outputs at 512 EU/t? so after a bit it would overfill and be wasted?

    I did a theoretical design for a 39x39 solar array (1499 panels) that would be connected through 1 tin cable.
    As far as MFSU filling up? Yes. That's why you use a HVT instead (3 dots towards solar array) since they can send multiple low packets at the same time.
    But yes, you'd need more then 1 MFSU hooked up to the HVT if you wanted to store/send all the power. Else you could just use 1 MFSU and have the rest of the juice dump into a mass fabricator.


    Ed: *looks at the picture harder* did you say that's only 1/4 of it? What version of IC is that running? Cos I thought they dropped the distance-loss on tin cables to 1 EU at 40 length, and it looks like there's cable longer then 40 in there...

    I actually made a solar flower that gives off 57 eu since tin is pretty rare on my world for some reason. I also have to use it a lot to build solar panels. But the 57 eu into an mfsu still fills it up pretty quickly. Faster than I use the power currently running my machines day and night. But I also don't have a quantum suit right now. But this is very good to know.

    Nerf panels... lol

    Would anyone like to try a Slowpoke Tail?! Only 1 Million Yen!


    Quote

    this isn't about arrogance or ego, I have a block that I put a lot of freaking work into


    Every Mod Author, in existence. And yet, you STILL say otherwise.

    This is not the most efficient design.


    http://forum.industrial-craft.…page=Thread&threadID=1963



    that is, at a 1/4 of power i was getting 1332 EU/T so at max i was getting 5,329 EU/T (if i had built a full array, but i was already lagging)


    also i've just finished the maximum power solar design with advanced solar panels, If they are set at 16 EU/T during the day and you used Glass fibre cables, you would get a 319 Radius Solar panel Array, so and entire array (including the energy loss an all that) is 407,692 EU/T


    MATH: 319 Lengths, therefore 319 columns that go from 1 to 319 consecutively (in a single Wing, the full array would have 4 Wings + 1 Adv. Solar panel above the very storage device), 319 is and odd number therefore if you pair up the ends of the numbers in the group ( 1 +319 = 320, 2 +318 = 320 Etc.) to help multiply you come out with 318x320 = 101,760 + 159 = 101,919x4 = 407,676 + 16 = 407,692 EU/T


    Advantage: Maximum Free Power, Produces power at night (i am not going to do the math for this because i'm not sure if it rounds up or rounds down due to the power loss at distance) Able to Paint wires to reduce lag (not enough probably because of the extreme length)
    Downsides: Massive massive size, Massive massive resource requirements, May not generate full power because chunks are not kept loaded, will create a massive darkness zone if area is not well lit. And this time i didn't get pictures because i didn't even bother to build it, it's just way too CPU intensive and too time-consuming to do this. I hope i'm right on the calculations, If i'm wrong PLEASE feel free to correct me


    EDIT: i may have been wrong with the Pairing of numbers within 1 and 319 so actually it could be 204,172 EU/T in total, 319 Numbers that are numbers 1 through 319 consecutively, if you remove the middle and pair up each ends of numbers you'll get 159 pairs of 320 and 159 therefore it may be 159x320= 50,880 + 159 = 51,039 x4 = 204,156 +16 = 204,172 EU/T, So, I hope someone makes a power-Grid Design with MSFU or something.

    Having made ~500 solars on my own... Yeah, it's pretty insane. that's /normal/ solars, not the advanced ones. That resource and time and headache of wiring cost is /why/ I don't feel they're over-powered, as is. Further, if the /wiring/ were fixed to be /wattage/ and not /voltage/ limited then it would be perfectly balanced.

    Quote from Rick

    Better make panels a hell lot more expensive and let them output more should reduce lag alot.

    To ad something to my idea:
    Make sure you can upgrade your generators to a next tier. This next tier will produce double eu but will cost roughly triple the cost. If this is done you wont have to spam 2000 solars to get your eu. Just some tier 4 solars would be enough. Will fix the lag while adding something to the mod.

    Since you said "Feel free to correct me" I will :) . When you measured by the MFSU, you know that it added the 512EU/s that it outputs? So You would be getting 820EU/s in reality. And I'm talking about normal solar panels, not advanced solar panels, because they would most likely make more power than you could probally deal with, and cost a diamond per panel, which = 2000 diamonds +. The other problems is that you can set the amount of power the advanced solar panel output, which makes them WAY overpowered, and making a solar panel that wastes power due to cable length is really inefficient. And if you built a full array you would have to subract a few rows of 40 panels because you would be double counting them. And how did your computer survive with that many cable intersections??


    Oh and also, our solar panel designs out the EXACT same amount of power. :thumbup:


    But if you noticed, I added an extra row of solar panels on one side, so if you made a full array, yours would be the most efficient one.

    I've started making "solar wings" myself. Unlike the flower, these lie flat, branching off 4 away from the central batbox to create a flat pyramid shape. I do them one on each side, and could add some between each wing but choose not to. The biggest bonus of this is copper wire, colored green and yellow (nearby renewable dyes) so that CPU drag is minimal at best, what with the nicely organized wires and all. I believe I get 16 per half-wing, so 32 per batbox, and it's fun to lay them flat on a roof or on a field, gives some creative atmosphere and looks like a real solar farm, long flat black areas that you can even walk on.

    Quote from Rick

    To ad something to my idea:
    Make sure you can upgrade your generators to a next tier. This next tier will produce double eu but will cost roughly triple the cost. If this is done you wont have to spam 2000 solars to get your eu. Just some tier 4 solars would be enough. Will fix the lag while adding something to the mod.

    Also, this fourm is for discussing designs, not suggesting ideas you think should be in the game.

    Quote from UnknownVoid

    Since you said "Feel free to correct me" I will :) . When you measured by the MFSU, you know that it added the 512EU/s that it outputs? So You would be getting 820EU/s in reality. And I'm talking about normal solar panels, not advanced solar panels, because they would most likely make more power than you could probally deal with, and cost a diamond per panel, which = 2000 diamonds +. The other problems is that you can set the amount of power the advanced solar panel output, which makes them WAY overpowered, and making a solar panel that wastes power due to cable length is really inefficient. And if you built a full array you would have to subract a few rows of 40 panels because you would be double counting them. And how did your computer survive with that many cable intersections??


    Oh and also, our solar panel designs out the EXACT same amount of power. :thumbup:


    But if you noticed, I added an extra row of solar panels on one side, so if you made a full array, yours would be the most efficient one.

    I don't think it did Add the 512 EU/T, it wasn't even connected to anything, i just used cables to jump up to a bit above the tree line, and i don't know how my Computer did so well in handling, i think i got 10 FPS, And no i would not have to subtract a few rows, if you look at the Links of the Wing i designed, you see it's only connected on one side of the MSFU and there's only 1 row that connects in line to the MSFU and this is just a Point of How much EU/T can be generated. Although when i look at the Guy's Set up of wire, That would save up on Framerate because of the pathing in the wires. so actually i was wrong, Your wiring Design is fine because it is most efficient, in saving up wires, but my panel design IMO is better, so i misunderstood the post, Also Everytime i added a length of tin, it had lag spikes so that's why i limited it to a quarter, and to answer the massive iron and Diamond requirement, TMI or Equivalent exchange or Custom Big trees! (allows to spawn big tree's out of any 2 blocks with the 2 blocks a block of obsidian and sapling). One more thing, i'm going to rebuild a wing just to see if the MSFU is adding on 512.

    Quote from anorend

    wouldnt the MSFU quickly fill up sense it only outputs at 512 EU/t? so after a bit it would overfill and be wasted?


    Have you tried to calculate how long that would take? 820 EU per tick, 20 ticks per second... that means more than ten hours of real time to fill an MFSU. And that's assuming constant daylight in game. So, under normal circumstances, call it 20 hours of play. Does that sound like "quickly" to you? :thumbup:

    Quote from HeadHunter67


    Have you tried to calculate how long that would take? 820 EU per tick, 20 ticks per second... that means more than ten hours of real time to fill an MFSU. And that's assuming constant daylight in game. So, under normal circumstances, call it 20 hours of play. Does that sound like "quickly" to you? :thumbup:

    Wrong @ 820 eu/tick it will take slightly longer than 10 mins. Where did you got the 20 hours from? XD

    Though I'm aware of the fact, it seems I didn't factor in that there are 20 ticks per second when I did the calcualtion. I stand corrected.

    I too saw Zeldo's solar wing, and wanted to know how much power it made.


    So I built it (with TMI of course)


    This thing lags like a beast when the day/night cycle changes.


    total Eu/tick is 3024. I thought it was 2048 for a long while, then realized that was the maximum input of my hv transformer that I was using. So I split it into 4 sections, two get 114 eu/tick, 1 gets 1397 eu/tick, and the last gets 1399 eu/tick.


    This is some serious power generation, but at a cost of 3000+ solars.